Responded to ad calling for engineers which specifically encouraged applications even if applicants didn't have experience in their tech stack. First interview was a half hour chat with a recruiter, asked questions like why I want to work at Zapier, as well as basic technical questions. Went well. Second interview was an hour talking to a group of engineers answering technical questions and discussing previous experiences, philosophies, etc. Went really well, was looking very promising. Third interview was a four hour code challenge to create an app in their tech stack from scratch. Well of course I crashed and burned because I did not know their tech stack. It's fine if you only want to hire people who know your tech stack, but don't encourage engineers who don't know the language or framework to apply if you are going to evaluate them based on their skills in that language and framework. This was a waste of everyone's time.

I answered some questions via an online form. The questions are supposedly to jump start the interview process by asking questions normally reserved for a first interview. It took me a couple of hours to thoughtfully write out answers. After a week, I received an email saying the hiring team was impressed. I was scheduled for a 30 minute "fit" interview which was conducted over video using Zoom. The interviewer was new to Zapier (two months) and non-technical (HR recruiter). She explained a little bit about the position and team. At one point, she broke into a list of questions, no doubt provided to her by the engineering team. The day after the interview, I was informed by email that my application had been rejected. At no point was I even asked for my resume (unless I wanted to share it via LinkedIn when submitting the initial application)! This led to wasted time when the recruiter asked questions based on assumptions made about my background that a quick glance of my resume would have resolved. The company has no idea of my skills (like what programming languages I work with), abilities (experiences working in and leading teams), or accomplishments (impact on customers, awards, promotions).