The interview process had 5 stages. It took a few weeks to get to the HR screen, where I was told the role would be ÂŁ5k below what I had asked. After this interview I was told it would actually be ÂŁ15k less than I had asked. The second stage was a very involved, although not too difficult tech test. It went beyond establishing whether I could code and in fact involved creating an entire test framework using Javascript and Playwright, with CI/CD, GitHub secrets and mocking implemented, as well as two test cases against their very nested webapp (iframes and so on).
The third stage required me, unexpectedly, to answer a lot of questions about my solution, some of which seemed to be about understanding the task THEY had set (why did you use Javascript, for example). The third stage interview was pleasant with decent hands-on engineers who outlined the problems they are having with releases, which to me sounded like a turning point in their technical maturity. I was told my code and my proposals for fixing the release cycle were 'excellent'.
This is great, but I am painfully aware that to turn that corner, leadership needs to be onboard, not micromanaging, and supportive of changes. I was told a few days, but over two weeks later I was invited to the final stage or the 'line manager interview'. This was where the fun began.
Founder and CEO, Sam Bose (although he denied being the founder when I asked, and saying I was wrong very much became a theme). He was rude, talked over me, treated every answer like it was wrong or obscure (I found myself explaining what a banking app was) but the primary red flag was his blatant micromanaging approach seeing himself as the centre of all activities, a fixation with one month iterations while ignoring the problems they are having (not to mention 'do the same thing and expect different results'. Many of the question from the five people who interviewed me were related to old school style test management. I was also looked at like I was from another planet when explaining the pipelines used one a large cloud project I played a key role on, like it was 'wrong' or I was making it up.
I have read allegations that this company advertise roles in order to harvest ideas. The final interview felt like a fit-up as it's hard to imagine that many red flags occuring organically! However, unlike other reports, the role I applied for is marked as no longer accepting applications, so this may not be fair. What is fair, is that whoever they chose, two decades experience tells me they will be toothless without a stark change in approach by the leadership.
The whole process took about 2 1/2 months. If I was billing the tech test would have cost them around ÂŁ1500, and if I'd met the CEO earlier on and had a more transparent view of what was going on we could all have saved ourselves some time.
I had decided to decline if I was made an offer (despite being out of work), but unsurprisingly, locking horns with the CEO in an interview didn't result in an offer!
I was just avoid. They were quite open about not wanting to spend any money on basically anything, and will lowball you on salary (it would have been less than I'd earned in a decade, but initially I thought the challenge seemed interesting and the solution they are working on to be quite cool). Salary isn't a huge issue, but I wouldn't work under someone who was that commited to avoiding change.
