Bias against older candidates. Concern regarding lack of older employees and bias toward “Microsoft style” hiring is mentioned in reviews posted by employees. My interview experience is consistent with those observations, although I had not read those before interviewing. The interview team and Director did poorly on teamwork / work environment focused questions that I asked.
Phone interviews were very standard. The “Homework” assignment was seemingly trivial, but contained a “trick” to trip up less experienced candidates.
The team I was interviewing for was working on a not-yet-released version of their product, which was at a beta level, but not posted for download yet. They were distributing the beta so I asked the phone interviewer if they could send me a copy, but he said no (more about this below).
The onsite interview was very disorganized. The HR person was a no-show, so I waited in the lobby until the first technical session, which was delayed. All technical segments were conducted with 2 interviewers. The lead interviewer scheduled for the first session was also not available, so they hurriedly found someone else, who obviously had insufficient time to review my background. The coding questions asked in the first session did not seem to be appropriate for my experience level, probably because the interviewer did not have time to prepare. I remained cheerful and upbeat during the session, but that actually seemed to irritate the lead interviewer. He seemed annoyed that he had to interview me on short notice, and it showed.
The second session was also all coding. Lunch with two team members was next but again, one of the scheduled (a manager) was not available, so they found another person to fill in. Both were junior staff which was fine, but they seemed a bit uncomfortable at first (especially the replacement). Lunchtime discussion was mainly informal, but I decided to ask about the beta version of the product. They said it had been packaged as a ‘public’ beta and would be no problem to send to candidates. They even seemed surprised no one sent it to me already. This was a concerning inconsistency. I did not revel to them that I had asked for it but was told ‘no’ by the phone interviewer.
Another technical session followed lunch. Yet again, there was a change but the manager originally scheduled for lunch joined this session. The other interviewer was the same person who conducted the phone interviewer. He was not a pleasant person at all. The questions at this last session were pointless because they were just more “trick” questions. Also, the interview team did not work together well during this session.
Note: My interview was months ago.
