Hello! Thank you so much for your feedback! I hope I can provide a bit more information about the process you experienced in order to clarify some issues you had. Our developer interviews were created in a way to first show culture fit, then technical fit, and finally team fit - so we ensure that everyone who we fly in has a 75% chance of being hired. Our final interview does include a coding challenge, which is coded differently for each position but will have the same problems each time in order to keep the test unbiased. I can guarantee you that the problem you faced with the test, every candidate who came in faced it as well. The challenge is also never ever timed and it’s okay if it’s not completed. It is only to see how you tackle these issues and work together with those around you to overcome them. We’ve found that those who can overcome roadblocks such as these do best as employees here so we try and implement something similar in each scenario. I agree wholeheartedly the communication saying ‘another candidate hit the finish line first’ is very confusing in hindsight and I do apologize for that. I will review my language in these emails from here out and ensure to be clearer about this. In the end, we had three total candidates complete the last phase of this interview process within a week and had a hard decision on who to choose for the one position we had open. One candidate stood out above the rest in both personality and skill so we went with them. However, we do keep every candidate who isn’t hired in mind for other opportunities. We will always be open to further conversation or hearing any other recommendations to our interview process. From this alone, I will be changing the wording of our feedback and ensure those in for finals have more information from the start. If you have any other questions or recommendations then I’d be happy to speak with you directly at Sara@linuxacademy.com.