Spidergap interview questions

This is my second time applying to Spidergap and the experience was just as amazing as the first one. The feedback I received the first time was incredibly useful for my growth. The process starts with an application form, an open-book coding screener and a basic interview. These 3 stages evaluate communication and coding skills. The next stage was a discussion with the HR on how I have demonstrated Spidergap's core values in my professional career. The next stage was an interview with the head of the engineering where we started off with a sample codebase and a user requirement and discussed how me might implement that requirement. The focus was on my problem solving approach and not on any specific technology. After this, I was invited to their farm team because they didn't have an immediate vacancy. We had already discussed this outcome before starting the process :)

My application lasted 4 months. No offer was made. I was scheduled for 2 (planned!!) calls, first with "HR" to see if the company was a fit for my requirements and vice versa, and then with the CEO for the formal interview (I wasn't aware it was a proper interview until 10 mins into the call and he had to rush off for another call as he said the call was booked incorrectly, so we continued it 1h05 minutes later while I waited). Questions were: - Give me an example where you dealt with a difficult situation at work, how was it resolved? - Give me a situation where you showed you were a team player etc. Many time consuming tasks, which included basically drafting email response template (which could be then used for the actual staff... not sure) A role call play - which also needed to be scheduled in A competitor research analysis Many tasks which took a lot of time and were not paid for (some companies offer some small compensation for doing timely tasks, although they claimed they were "quick" tasks, in reality were rather time consuming and quite tricky as gave v little info but asked for specific answers, which as frankly impossible without knowing a lot more about internal processes of the company ... After all this, an additional round was added "Call with manager" - a last minute call with who would be your line manager, who clearly himself didn't quite know what the call was for, but the guy was nice and only asked "What drives you?" but other than that casual chat about work etc. and opportunity to ask questions. This was about ... 2nd month in. From there it was 2 months of chasing, waiting for updates, feedback (was even offered at one point to withdraw my application if that was easier than waiting...) no real timeline was given until someone mentioned "early 2022" - we were in mid november 21... after a call, I was happy to wait with absolutely no news, no OOO emails when chasing, nothing. Early Jan after chasing 3 times, finally got an email from a random person at the company (had never had contact with her and had no job role in email signature) that it was a no, but I had been a great candidate, in fact the top candidate (as I was told many times throughout the process). Having now read the reviews for the interviews, i see this company rarely hires new people, so I wonder if its all just a waste of time or a scam (I even flagged that it had scam like feeling sometimes). Would not recommend, shame as the reviews internally seem like a nice enough company and products seem interesting.