Interviewed for Software Engineer - Full Stack role at QAD.
The interview process and AI-focused practical format initially sounded modern and interesting. The communication before the interview clearly mentioned an AI-native engineering round focused on problem-solving, AI-assisted development, engineering judgment, and collaboration.
However, my actual interview experience was disappointing.
The interviewer appeared to be from a recently acquired startup/team under QAD, and the overall communication style felt unprofessional and discouraging. Throughout the session, there were constant interruptions while answering questions, which made it difficult to properly explain my thought process or approach.
There were repeated comments like “even freshers can answer this,” delivered in a dismissive tone. Technical pressure and challenging questions are understandable in interviews, but the way they were communicated created an uncomfortable atmosphere rather than a collaborative discussion.
Another issue was that although the interview communication strongly emphasized AI-augmented engineering and practical coding, a significant part of the discussion shifted toward system design-related questioning and expectation alignment that did not fully match the original interview brief shared beforehand.
Because of the interviewer’s tone and interruptions, I gradually became defensive and uncomfortable during the session. Instead of focusing naturally on solving problems, I found myself trying to guess what exact answers the interviewer expected.
QAD’s AI-native interview concept itself has strong potential, but I believe more attention should be given to interviewer professionalism, communication standards, and alignment between the communicated interview format and the actual interview experience — especially when integrating teams from acquired startups/products.
A technical interview should challenge candidates while still maintaining professionalism, clarity, and mutual respect.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
RabbitMQ architecture and system design-related discussions
Application deployment process and deployment scripts
Infrastructure and performance-related scenarios such as:
“If the user is in Mumbai, the PostgreSQL database is hosted in the USA, and the backend server is in London, what would you do if the system becomes slow?”
Thank you for considering QAD and for interviewing with us. Thank you as well for this feedback on our interview process and your experience. I will share this feedback to the team so can ensure to improve upon our process and experience for candidates. Thank you!
I had a first screening call with HR which I think went pretty well. They just collected my data, and told me that I could be a good fit. They also informed that the process will take a few weeks to a month and that I'd hear from them the week after, regardless of the outcome.
Not only did I not hear from them, but I followed up on my candidacy with them for more than a month now and they keep ghosting me. At some point I noticed they reposted the job on LI, so I reached out about this and they still don't answer.
One thing is that a candidate isn't the best fit for a position, and a complete different thing is that the candidate gets disrespected by a potential employer. If you tell a candidate you'd be in touch, and if they reach out to you, it takes zero effort to send them an update. Otherwise, you're making them waste their time.
We're people after all. It's just the most humane thing to do.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The HR person had a checklist of skills and experiences she went through. There was no particular question, she just went through my CV. It surprised me she requested no introduction on my part, she went straight to her questionnaire.
I applied online. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at QAD (Pune) in Mar 2026
Interview
I had a positive discussion with the HR team and the hiring manager. However, my interaction with the India Head was disappointing and came across as unnecessarily dismissive.
Having conducted many interviews myself, I believe professional courtesy matters regardless of how a conversation goes. Interviews are short interactions, and sometimes candidates may be nervous, communication may not be perfectly aligned, or discussions may drift and that is part of human interaction.
What concerned me more was the way previous leadership exits, including that of the CEO, were discussed and normalized as routine tactical decisions. While maintaining a high performance bar and making difficult organizational decisions is part of leadership, the manner in which these situations are described often talks a volume about the broader culture of an organization and a leader thought-process.
Leadership styles driven by arrogance or entitlement(often misunderstood as deciplined) may create immediate tactical impact, but often end up causing greater long-term organizational damage.
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