I applied through LinkedIn job post which redirects to their application page. After more than a week, I received an email invitation for a Technical Phone Screen and scheduled based on selectable date / time from a Calendar. I scheduled the initial interview two days later.
I started to notice some red flags as soon as I started with the interview process. The interviewer was late for a couple of minutes for because the call before me overruns my schedule. The organizer apologies via an email so I patiently waited for my turn. The initial interview started with the interviewer's discussion about the company, current and upcoming projects and about the role. After that, I was asked to tell about my professional background and technology stack.
It appears that I passed that initial interview (which took roughly less than 30 minutes) because before ending the call I was told to wait for an email with the link to a technical exam.
A few minutes after the call I received an email from CodeScreen regarding the Backend Engineer Assessment which I should start within a week and with a time limit of 2 days to complete. It was a coding challenge that involves building several backend APIs. Upon reading the email it was a Second Red Flag for me as spending 2 days on unpaid work is definitely a waste of time. But then I still gave it a try and allotted some time the following week to work on that project. It took 2 days before I received an email inviting me for the next stage which was 90 minutes of discussion regarding the coding challenge solution and culture fit. However, It turned out to be just 90 minutes of discussion about the solution and questions about stuffs and concepts that were not even part of the technical assessment requirements. It was a very long discussion that it even exceeded the allotted 90 minutes and had to end because of there was another call (this made me realized that it's probably the same reason why my initial interview was delayed). The interview ended with the message from interviewer that says "We'll get back to you".
Based on my previous experience, prospective employers will usually send an email either immediately after the interview or 2-3 days after regarding the result. However, for this company it took them 2 weeks to send an email that their team has decided to proceed with other candidates whose skills more closely match the specifications of the role. And all the efforts and time I've spent went down the drain. Red flag #3, the position has been opened for 5 months and remains open until this writing.
If you value your time I do not recommend applying for this company.
