Kisi

TL;DR: Interviewed for a Senior SWE role. Built a massive full-stack Zapier-clone take-home assignment. Not a single person asked me about my code. One interviewer showed up 3 hours late because he overslept. The CTO ghosted the final round. I was eventually rejected with factually incorrect feedback because they fundamentally didn't understand (or review) the code they asked me to write. The Full Experience: As a Senior SWE with roughly 8 years of experience, I am used to rigorous interview loops, but the sheer lack of professionalism and respect for a candidate's time at this company was staggering. Round 1: The WhatsApp Intro The red flags started immediately. The interviewer messaged me directly on WhatsApp before the call, telling me to decline the meeting if I wasn't actually interested. He later backtracked and apologized, saying he mistook my number for another candidate. During the call, he bragged about staying at this tiny company for 9 years but provided zero transparency regarding compensation, benefits, or perks. The Black-Hole Take-Home Assignment I was given a heavy, full-stack take-home project called the "Mini Workflow Engine." The requirement was to build a Zapier-like clone from scratch using Node.js, TypeScript, React, and PostgreSQL. It had to allow users to create multi-step workflows triggered by unique HTTP webhooks, process sequential steps (like filters and data transformations), and execute external HTTP requests. I spent hours building, testing, and hosting this. The kicker? In all the subsequent interview rounds, not a single person asked me a follow-up question about my code, my architectural choices, or my tech stack. Round 3: The 3-Hour Snooze This was supposed to be a System Design round with the initial interviewer and a junior engineer. The main interviewer completely no-showed. I dropped off and emailed them. He finally joined the call 3 hours later. His excuse? His baby kept him up the night before and he overslept. The system design part was standard, but when I asked him why he stayed at the company for 9 years, he launched into a 20-minute, entirely unprompted rant about his personal life, his marriage, and his own periods of "underperformance" at work. To cap it off, he admitted he didn't even know what the next steps in their own interview process were. Round 4: The CTO Ghosting It took 1.5 weeks and multiple follow-up emails just to get the final round scheduled. When the time came, the CTO no-showed. He later claimed the calendar invite went to his "Rippling spam" folder. When the interview finally happened, it was mostly just him monologuing about his obsession with using AI coding tools to rapidly prototype apps so the company doesn't have to hire UI designers. Again, zero mention of compensation. He said he would discuss it over email. The Rejection & Incompetent Feedback I got a generic rejection email. When I asked for feedback, the CTO replied with two blatant, factually incorrect excuses that proved they didn't pay attention to my interview or my code: 1. "Limited understanding of our product landscape": He claimed I didn't ask enough follow-up questions about the product. The reality? The previous interviewer had already shared highly detailed documentation about their marketplace and problem space. I had already read it, so I didn't need to ask redundant baseline questions. 2. The take-home "failed" : He claimed my app failed when he tried to execute a workflow using the pre-filled UI data. The assignment prompt explicitly stated the UI could be minimal. The pre-filled text in the UI was intentionally just a skeleton to show the expected payload structure. I deliberately built frontend and backend validations to block that skeleton payload and guide users to input a real, valid payload. If they had bothered to do a 5-minute code review with me, or asked a single question about the assignment they made me build, this would have been cleared up instantly. Takeaway: They demand free labor via heavy take-homes, lack the basic professional courtesy to show up on time, and will reject you based on their own refusal to actually review the work they demanded. Avoid.