TLDR: Your time is worth zero. Got a call from a Datadog's recruiter about my resume that I had sent a while ago. Initially I did not want to be interviewed, since their take-home test requires a solid 3/4 days of work. The recruiter then told me that a Github project would do, but it had to be so and so, testable, documented and so forth. So I pointed them to a couple of projects of mine on Github, and they replied in a couple of days, saying that the projects were good enough, so we could move on with the next phases of the interview. They scheduled me for an online test with two of their developers, which I reluctantly accepted, since it's a very good indicator of a toxic company culture. I passed the test, which consisted of an easy algorithm question, and then a question about a project where I "showed my teamwork ability and collaboration". I told them about a certain job I had held in the past. At the same time, I asked the two developers about their job, and it turned out they were fully remote and working from other countries, and quite interestingly, they were stressed out like hell. A few days later they announced that I had passed that test too, so now I would have to do: - ANOTHER online test - a "system design test" - an interview with a VP Now, two consecutive online tests are a surefire sign of a company that is totally messed up, but at this point I really wanted to find out what was going on there, so I said yes. They sent me a list of things I should "study" (algo stuff on leetcode, material on the "datadog coding school" or something like that). So a week later I was scheduled for three interviews in one afternoon. I passed the second online test, I passed the system design test (interestingly, the questions were completely basic and showed little understanding of system design on the part of the interviewer), and then, I got to the interview that was actually funny, the interview with the VP. Actually since the original VP was not available, I got interviewed by another VP (like they are interchangeable....) We talked for an hour, about a project I had done in the past, how I coped with difficulties and so forth. He had very detailed questions, and I felt I answered everything correctly. At no point he indicated that I did not agree with what I was saying, or something was missing. At the same time, he looked kind of agitated, big eyes, high energy. I was curious about the guys that worked remotely, and he told me "it's a different contract, we tell them from the beginning they will be remote". Also interesting, everybody in the second round of interviews was not a remote developer, and also not a junior developer. At that point I thought everything went well. They sent me a standard rejection letter a few days later, saying that the last interview did not go well. Considering that their regular interview process includes the take-home test, we are talking about three weeks down the drain. From the questions I asked during the interviews, I think that this is happening at Datadog: - there is a tight knit circle of old timers - managers, senior devs and VPs working onsite in Paris - there are remote developers working all over Europe, being overworked and exploited - HR is trying to hire new people and break the circle, so they have people interviewed by the remote people - the old timers oblige HR to basically redo the interviews with "their people" - the old timers have the last say in interviews and stonewall seniors trying to get in. I think I dodged a bullet!