I was contacted by the recruiter for an initial screen, which wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Then I spoke to the hiring manager, one team member, and the VP of the department on 3 separate calls. I was asked to do a 2 part project--the first part was 2 SQL queries. For the second part, I was given a dataset in Excel and asked to pull insights out of it. I was pretty let down by this project for a few reasons. Partly because the data was dirty, which I can deal with, but mostly because some of their dimensions weren't defined and/or didn't make sense. A little more direction on the project would've been helpful. Other projects I've received from other companies at the VERY LEAST contained an explanation of what some of their dimensions were if they weren't obvious. I interviewed with Backcountry's biggest competitor and their project was a lot more clear cut and my end product actually impressed (whereas here, it definitely did not). I was asked to submit the SQL portion of the project first and then was flown out for an on-site interview at their Park City HQ. I met with the recruiter for an office tour and then was directed to a conference room to present my PowerPoint for the second half of the project. Needless to say, what I'd put together was not impressive. I'll be the first to admit that. I probably could've done more than what I put forth, but let's keep a few things in mind here. 1, this is an interview project--asking people to put in a ton of work to even decipher what your data means in addition to completing the actual project is a bit...self important on Backcountry's part. 2, the data didn't make sense. Sure, I could've pulled out 'insights' (with no clear business question in mind), but they wouldn't have made sense without any context surrounding the data. After the abysmal presentation, I had 4 separate one-on-ones. One with a very cool analyst who had transitioned into more of a data engineer type position, one with a guy that had been moved from a customer service analyst position into a data analyst position, one with the hiring manager, and one with the VP. The only one that had any actual questions for me was the first person. Overall, the entire morning sort of felt like a waste of time. Why had I even been flown out there to interview? It seemed like they weren't really interested at all. And apparently they weren't, because after spending time and money in the process (on both of our ends), they never called me back. I was giving it time because I do understand that the process can be drawn out. But it's now been almost 4 weeks, so I feel alright about writing this. Overall, I was extremely let down by the entire process with Backcountry. I'd been so excited to interview and be considered for this position, only to be let down by a lack of professionalism. I'm an avid outdoor enthusiast. I snowboard, ski, mountain bike, hike, rock climb...you name it. I'd been fairly loyal to Backcountry for all of my gear needs...but after this experience, I don't think I can even be a customer anymore. At the very least, they could've sent a rejection email, but I didn't even get that. Another thing worth mentioning is that they made it pretty clear that this would not be a collaborative environment or somewhere where someone could grow their skills as an analyst. Verbatim, the VP said he expected someone that could come in with very little ramp up time (he said a week) and be able to provide what they needed. So, be prepared if hired -- they want you to be an expert in what you do and their business within a week and they're only willing to pay $60-70k for it. Which is crazy considering the market for these positions at the moment. Get it together Backcountry, you have more potential than this.