I was approached by a Coolblue Energy recruiter on LinkedIn for a Java Lead Developer / Guild captain position at Coolblue Energy (formerly ServiceHouse, acquired by Coolblue).
This role was expected to be both technical lead and manager of Java engineers (~15 people).
The process was very long and getting feedback/scheduling for the next steps could take weeks. The time from the first interview until the last one was 1 month and a half.
First interview was with the recruiter ~45 mins explaining how good the Energy department is and the bright future it has ahead, plan to grow, etc.
Followed by a codility test, then a technical/personal interview with another 2 tech leads/guild captains (~1 hour, online) asking general questions on how to approach certain issues or which ideas are you bringing into the team.
Final interview with the general manager of the Energy company in Amersfoort (~1 hour, in person). Usual questions about managing people, quality, what do you bring into the team again, how would you manage issues inside the team, stakeholders, etc. There was some uncertainty about the future of the role because Coolblue has a different structure, it could be the final role was Team lead, hands on manager in a team of 4-7 people, and not manage Java developers across 4 teams, which was ok to me, I raised my concerns about managing such large amount of people and still expected to be in charge/involved in technical decisions.
It's been 1 month and a half since this final interview.
The process required a lot of time. Interviews & preparation, going to Amersfoot for the final interview, I spent some personal time for this. I had high expectations about Coolblue which were not met, I haven't got any feedback, not even a response to my emails asking about the status of the process. I found it very unprofessional. I wasn't expecting to be ghosted by Coolblue in the final step of the process.