I was contacted by a local third-party recruiter for the position of a Senior Backend Engineer with Boost Insurance in New York. I first had a 30-minute phone call with the hiring manager. I was called on time which is good. The conversation seemed informal, but don't let this fool you. Throughout my interaction with him, a candidate may be fooled into believing he is easygoing, but the fact is that he is looking to weed you out at every turn. The phone call covered my experience and my interests along with the expectations for the position. Note that they use Scrum. I asked the manager what he does himself, whether he is hands-on or not, and the answer I got suggested that he is not personally hands-on. I was then sent a 75 minute HackerRank challenge which I passed although I didn't solve it perfectly. I was scheduled for an on-site interview which lasted three hours. The hiring manager inadvertently made me feel uncomfortable for showing up a little early. I could've quietly waited, but instead I felt embarrassed for proactively showing up minutes before the scheduled time. I interviewed with the hiring manager, his boss, two engineers, and one remote engineer. I had numerous programming questions, a whiteboard service-design architecture test, and a database design test, with nothing out of the ordinary. The engineers all seemed good to work with. I was asked what I would do if I had more unplanned work than could reasonably be performed that week. This question didn't really make sense in a scrum setting. It was so obvious that they are looking to get a worker who would work free overtime, and they think that being a startup gives them this privilege. It was a red flag. The men's restroom at their office was uncomfortably small, but this is common at some startups startups in the area. The hiring manager took two references, both of which he spoke to. I trust my references to have given a positive recommendation. The hiring manager nevertheless then turned me down. This was burdensome to me and my references. It took a fair bit of effort on my part to extract feedback. It was that they were looking for someone who is not a strong personality, and that they already have enough strong personalities in the team. In summary, I think what they're looking for is someone who will put their head down, won't ask too many questions or make demands, and will regularly put in free overtime. To top it off, they want assurances that such a worker to stick around for many years. If you interview for this position, be prepared to be asked several trick questions about your working style that have little to do with your skills as an engineer.