It may sound hyperbolic, but despite its extreme brevity, this was one of the most nebulous interview processes I have ever gone through. I have heard wonderful things about GitLab as an organization, and it's got a good product, so this realization was disappointing. The application was robust, which I found to be a good thing — it gave the opportunity to write in-depth answers about my experience and to distinguish myself from other potential candidates, beyond my resume. A few days later, I received an email from an internal recruiter who said that they wanted to interview me. In the email, he requested that I schedule a time for a half-hour Zoom video chat via his Calendly schedule. I wrote back, told him I was excited to chat, and reserved an open slot on his schedule. Two days later, without any explanation, I got an automated email saying that he had canceled the meeting. I reached out to politely ask what happened, saying I would be happy to reschedule. Four days later, he responded saying that the time was "a bit off for me" and that he could meet another time that day. I wrote back saying that was fine, suggested a few time slots I was available, and asked if any of them would work. I got no response from this inquiry, so after three more days (the day before we had initially been scheduled to meet) I followed up and asked if he had received my last email with the potential time slots. He wrote back saying he thought I had already scheduled time on his Calendly. (Note that he canceled the first time I did that, and he never wrote back about which of my new suggested times worked for him.) Nonetheless, I responded saying no problem, and that I would schedule a time. On the day of the interview, I connected to the Zoom meeting. He connected a few minutes late, saying that his internet wasn't working well, and told me to turn off my video to lessen the likelihood of a shoddy connection. He then asked me a series of questions about my background. These were standard questions, but they were delivered in a relative monotone, clearly read from a script. I certainly have no problem with preprepared questions, but usually a recruiter and I will end up having a conversation surrounding a given question, rather than just going robotically through a questionnaire with no follow-up discussion. He seemed rather bored by the questions, or maybe to not understand them fully. One example: He asked about the tech stack at my current role — I told him we used the JavaScript frameworks Angular and React on different areas of the platform. His next question was whether I had ever used any JS frameworks (citing Vue as an example). Keep in mind that not only am I applying for a JS role, but I just listed two frameworks I had used. I don't expect him to know the nitty gritty of programming because that's not really his job, but given my answer to the previous question I would have thought he would at least have revised the question. To this day, I wonder if he was incorrectly conflating "Vue" and "JS frameworks" and docked me points because I told him I had not specifically used Vue. Despite the awkwardness of the interview, I answered his questions competently, politely, and affirmatively (yes, I had worked with JS frameworks, yes, I've worked in several different flavors of Agile, yes, I had some experience with remote companies but was very excited/interested to learn how it worked at GitLab), told him reasons I was specifically excited to join GitLab, and asked a few questions of my own. This was a Friday, and he said he would circle back on Monday about next steps. I wrote the recruiter a follow-up email thanking him for his time and restating my interest in the role. I received no response. When, on Wednesday of the following week, I still hadn't heard from him, I wrote again just to see if there was any update or if he needed any more info from me. No response. The following Tuesday (over a week after he said I would hear from him), he wrote saying that they would not be moving forward with my application. It's always disappointing to get a rejection, but this felt absurd. The initial phone screenings I've had in the past have been lighthearted and friendly. By being nice, articulate, and having some experiences to draw from, it's usually easy to move onto a technical interview. Whether a candidate gets an offer, a recruiter should make the experience as smooth and straightforward as possible. This recruiter was unprofessional, disorganized, uncommunicative, and not very friendly. I am curious to know why my application was passed on so early on, but I have a suspicion that it was the result of some sort of miscommunication about my skill set. It's possible I just got unlucky with this particular recruiter, but if working at GitLab is as disappointing as this interview process was, I feel I may have dodged a bullet.