A Datadog recruiter wasted my time, unfortunately :( I applied for a Team Lead role, remote position. Got an invitation for a recruiter screen. First, the recruiter told me that even though the job description said it was a remote job, they were only looking for people who are located in Dublin, because they want to be able to summon them to the office should they ever want to. Secondly, she told me that they won't be able to proceed with the interview, because I don't have any management experience. (I don't have any formal management experience, but I've been an SWE for 10+ years and have mentored others). I politely asked why she had invited me to the interview in the first place, since my CV clearly describes my experience. She said it's because sometimes people don't read job descriptions carefully and don't know what they are applying for. Honestly, this is the weirdest interview experience I've ever had. To be invited to the interview only to be told that they can't proceed with my application. An email would have sufficed.

The process was relatively short. After an initial conversation with the recruiter and a second conversation with the hiring manager the process officially began. All in all, 5 ~1h interviews throughout 2 weeks. I was given the option of having live code interviews or a take home challenge.

They asked me to complete a take-home test to showcase my coding skills. They gave me no deadline. I sent back the test a few days later after having spent about four hours on it. Their feedback was that the test was great overall, showing clean code, the right choices and good testing. Nevertheless, they decided it wasn't enough, because of some minor flaws. They literally said since we give no deadline, we expect the test to be perfect. Basically, they were expecting me to spend weeks polishing a stupid take-home test like it was production-ready, taking that time away from my personal life and my family. By the way, the requirements for the test were just sketched, so I wonder how they expect people to come up with a "production-ready" thing. This is probably the stupidest feedback I ever had on a take-home test.