The hiring process took around a month from first contact applying through the website to the final interview and response.
I have to say that I have interviewed with a number of companies. The best are the ones kind enough to tell you straight out that they are not interested and not leaving you hanging. In this respect, I do appreciate that feedback. The exception that I have during this interview process is the lack of coordination on behalf of RackSpace. Never have I had a prospective employer miss a scheduled interview. On top of that, I've never had one miss 3 in a row. These were phone interviews, mind you, so I suppose that's easy to overlook, but it just shows a lack of class.
When RackSpace actually followed through with the phone interviews, they went smoothly enough. First was with an HR type going through a litany of command line questions and displaying basic concepts of Linux. Second phone interview was with an level 3 admin with random open ended questions and hypothetical situations that may arise in production environments. The final interview that I had with them was an in-person. They were gracious enough to hold the interview at 10 PM to fit my work schedule ( which I really appreciated and thought was VERY cool ). However, when I arrived at the Austin offices, the contact phone number I was given to enter the building went straight to voicemail with a message saying they were on vacation. Imagine my surprize. I resorted to driving around the building trying to find someone who I might be able to convince ( with my strange excuse ) that I have an interview at 10. Luckily and by chance I did find the person who was to interview me sitting outside in the smoking/break area. Weird right?
After being let into the building, I was introduced to the level 3 admin who held my phone interview, another level 2, and the department manager. There I was asked about my prior experiences, my current position, what computers I had, and then technical questions. I was then interviewed by the department manager and a Windows admin. I felt that the technical questions were fair.
After all the hoop jumping and interview rescheduling I was offered an automated reply about a week later letting me know that they appreciated my time but were not interested in proceeding further in the hiring process. It’s understandable that I would be embittered by the rejection and I was. However, it didn’t really get to me until I started to hear about the other people that they hired instead. People that you would think twice about letting them have any kind of administrative access. Truly terrifying.
This was the worst series of interviews that I have ever have and really changed my outlook on the company as a whole. I really did think that they had everything together as a company. Turns out it’s just all show.
