I applied online. I interviewed at CHAOS Industries (Los Angeles, CA) in Dec 2025
Interview
Applied on their site. Went through one of their staff coordinators. Did a screener interview. Passed the screener. Moved onto the hiring manager. Was told I would get a response back within the week. Ghosted. Called 2-3 times over the following weeks. Finally got an auto-rejection from their automated system. Terrible communication. The staff recruiter I talked to was phoning it in and gave off vibes that he didn't care about me or this job.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at CHAOS Industries in Feb 2026
Interview
Got contacted by a recruiter, went to hiring manager. Hiring manager liked me. Told me next steps were a technical screening followed by a panel where the team would vet and get to know me followed by a follow up interview.
During this interview, it became clear that the listed skillsets and tools that were expected to be known were only somewhat represented on the actual job description. The job description also didn't weigh very heavily what was more desirable vs less important. It just set a bad expectation for what was wanted and what I would have to talk about in the interview.
I got a surprise stage with a different hiring manager between the one that was hiring for this team and the broader company. The entire time, the interviewer made clear that they were very unclear as to expectations and standards for what they wanted out of me. They didn't know if they were going to pull me from the team I was interviewing for to go with another one or not. A pattern emerged from a series of questions I asked on the recruiter, the first hiring manager, and this one. They were looking for a very specific role fit and were very picky. The position had been vacant for an extended period of time (given what they were looking for, it was going to stay that way).
Fundamentally, this particular manager didn't seem to approve of me and I was bounced at this stage. The internal recruit manager, who've I've worked with in the past, continued the same pattern of slow turnaround on information and a clear air of "I can't care less about you" that I was used to.
I have interviewed multiple times at this company. Every time, the pattern remains the same. Over the course of an extended period of time, they have not improved their process. They are poor on communication. They don't exactly know what they want, but are simultaneously very picky with their standards.
I don't think I'll ever interview with them again because this is not going to work out if I try going forward. A competitor snapped me up shortly after this interview. Avoid these people if you possibly can. They haven't improved the pipeline in a rather long time and they're not likely to improve it going forward.
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