The interview process involved a very extensive test assignment that required a considerable time investment. I submitted a detailed report (~15 pages), but the feedback I received did not seem directly related to the work provided, and no offer followed.
Afterward, I noticed similar comments from other QA candidates regarding this position. In hindsight, I would recommend that candidates carefully evaluate the scope of take-home assignments before investing significant time.
Other Middle QA Engineer interview reviews for HomeBuddy
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at HomeBuddy
Interview
I’m sharing my experience to help other candidates make an informed decision before investing significant time in this recruitment process.
The first interview was conducted by an HR representative who was leaving the company the following day. I was informed that this person had only been “helping out” for three months. This immediately raised concerns about internal stability and continuity in the hiring process.
After that, I was assigned a very extensive technical task with a five-day deadline. The assignment included:
* Exploratory testing of a landing page and multi-step wizard (bug identification and prioritization)
* Preparing a complete regression checklist
* Writing at least 10 test cases
* Creating an automated test script based on one of the highest ROI test cases
This was not a small exercise — it required a serious time commitment. I delivered a detailed 15-page document and enabled comments for transparency and discussion.
Four days later, I received a one-line response stating that I had found a relatively small number of bugs and that my prioritization did not align with their internal guidelines. No detailed review. No constructive feedback. No discussion.
While I genuinely enjoyed the complexity of the task, the lack of meaningful evaluation and feedback makes it hard to justify the amount of unpaid work required. It gave the impression that the assignment may not have been reviewed thoroughly.
I strongly recommend that candidates carefully consider how much time they are willing to invest in such extensive recruitment tasks without any guarantee of substantive feedback.
Constructive feedback is valuable. A one-line rejection after a multi-day assignment is not.