As an initial step, they sent an unpaid code assignment, and after I submitted it, they provided zero feedback. I completed the assignment under the assumption that unpaid work should not require more than a few hours, but it seems they are looking for a bigger time commitment from applicants. In my opinion, this hiring process is immature and undermines the goal of attracting senior engineers to the position. I did the assignment out of curiosity (as I had never worked with Excel addons before), but I would suggest skipping this company as they don’t value your time.

Pavel (CTO), when addressing (here on glassdoor) another interviewee’s concern about the time commitment for the test task, said the following: “…we never play the numbers game. The test assignment is only offered to candidates who look brilliant at the screening stage – and you did.” According to Pavel’s words, you first have to go on a screening call with a recruiter (the screening stage), and only then they will hand you the test task. That’s simply not true. In my case, I had to do the test task first in order to get to a screening call with a recruiter. So I first spent my time coding the task, and only then we scheduled a screening call, which is the complete opposite of “never playing the numbers game” that Pavel claimed. Aside from my own experience, here is a literal copy-paste of the interview process that I've received from a recruiter via email: “Our hiring process consists of the following stages: 1. Test task 2. Online interview with a discussion of the test task outcomes (up to two online interviews with a discussion of your background and the test task outcomes) 3. Background check 4. Offer” As you can see, the first stage is not a screening stage. It’s the test task. Which is exactly what it was like in my case. The second stage is where you actually get your screening call, and then, if you pass it and the feedback about your test task is positive, you move on to the technical interview, which could still be a full-on technical interview even if you completed the test task. You can see how time-consuming this is for the interviewee. My experience: 1. Completed the test task with all the additional points 2. Got on the call with the recruiter about my background and expectations 3. Waited a couple of days for feedback from the CTO, who responded with negative feedback. I mean, there was no actual feedback about what I did wrong or ways to improve. It was just a rejection. To be fair, Velixo does say in the test task description that a candidate might not get feedback right off the bat, so I knew what I was diving into. All in all, I would advise you to only consider coding the test task if you have a genuine interest in completing it. Do not expect to get feedback about it, and do not do it solely for a chance of getting the job, because there are much more efficient ways to spend 3–12h of your time (depending on how deep you want to go and your prior knowledge of Excel add-ins). Because the test task is basically the first step, they have many candidates doing the same thing. You’re in direct competition with them, which is not the best way to spend your time, because it’s better to compete during actual interviews that last 1–3h in total than to spend much more of your time on a test task.