I was contacted by Glovo's recruiting team for a Senior iOS Engineer position in Berlin. Only at the start of the call did the recruiter mention she hadn't noticed I had previously interviewed for a different role (Staff iOS, Barcelona) less than a year prior. She then informed me that their system now enforces a 1-year cooldown between interviews — a policy that apparently didn't exist during my previous process. When I pointed out that we were in March and my previous interview was in May, making it less than two months away from the one-year mark, and that this was a different role in a different city, the response was essentially that the policy is the policy. The issue isn't the cooldown itself — it's that I was invited back, went through scheduling, and only found out about the blocker once the call had already started. A basic check before reaching out would have avoided wasting both sides' time. Beyond the logistics, the process itself lacks structure and consistency. The HR recruiter asks technical questions about topics like Swift concurrency and architecture choices, and then the feedback comes back saying your answers weren't technically deep enough. If the interview is HR-led, candidates naturally calibrate to that context. If you want technical depth, have an engineer on the call — or be transparent that the recruiter is evaluating on behalf of an AI system reviewing the transcript. It's unclear who is actually assessing you: the recruiter, an engineer, or an algorithm. In the technical rounds of a previous process, the architecture interview felt like the engineers expected you to arrive at their specific solution rather than evaluate your reasoning and flexibility. When I approached the problem with a context-driven, trade-off-based mindset — which is exactly what senior engineers are supposed to do — it was framed as a negative. Similarly, not using every possible Swift syntax or framework in a given answer was interpreted as not knowing them, rather than making deliberate choices appropriate to the problem at hand. Senior engineering interviews should assess judgment and adaptability, not whether you mirror a predefined answer or demonstrate every tool in your arsenal unprompted. The recruiter was polite, but the overall process showed a lack of coordination, consistency, and transparency. If you've interviewed with Glovo before, confirm your eligibility before investing time in their process.

Engineering Manager Interview: This was a one-hour session with some technical discussions focused on my current and past work experiences. Cultural Fit Interview: A separate session with two other managers, lasting over an hour. Outcome: Rejected. The Engineering Manager round went very well — he was a genuinely nice person, and I enjoyed the conversation and mutual knowledge sharing. The cultural fit round, however, felt a bit unclear. They asked general questions about daily work habits, conflict resolution, teamwork, etc. It was confusing because such questions usually have no right or wrong answers — they reflect individual experience and style. Despite feeling that the conversation went smoothly, I later received a rejection email citing a “skill gap,” which was surprising. The cultural fit round didn’t seem focused on the skills listed in the job description, so it’s unclear how they assessed that gap. No specific feedback was provided.