First round was on a video call with a recruiter for a basic introduction to the company and to get to know you. The recruiter I talked to had clearly read my resume and asked me pointed questions about it rather than having me walk them through it, so I appreciated that a lot. When I asked, the recruiter said there won't be a live coding exercise for any of the interview rounds. Great, I thought, those are usually silly.
Second round was a video call with the engineering manager, an architect, and 2 others from the team (I forget their exact roles). The first thing they asked me to do right after a quick round of introductions was one of those silly live coding exercises lol. I mentioned that the recruiter said there wouldn't be one, so I wasn't exactly prepared, but sure I'll give it a shot. I shared my screen and started getting set up, then asked if I could write it in TS, but they insisted that I write it in C# because that's what the job posting is for, even though I didn't list C# on my resume... I tried to explain that I'm familiar with C#, it's frankly not too much different from TS since they're both C-based languages, most important engineering concepts are language agnostic anyways, and that I've had lots of experience learning new languages and I'm confident that I can get up to speed quickly. I'm just not comfortable enough in C# to live code in front of a bunch of people right now. I would have brushed up on C# a bit if I had known that I was going to have a live coding challenge, but I was explicitly told I wouldn't, so I focused on other things. I was frankly about to say thanks but no thanks at this point, but the engineering manager stepped in and said that they miscommunicated with me about the live coding, so they'll push it off until the next round. We continued with some verbal technical questions covering OOP, APIs, a little about SQL, and basic front end concepts. They stayed about 15 minutes past the end of the meeting to chat and answer questions and they were very friendly.
It's been a bit less than a week and I haven't heard anything one way or the other, but they raised enough red flags that I wouldn't accept a return invite anyways. I'd have been "happy" to do a live coding thing if either a) I hadn't been told explicitly not to worry about one, or b) if I were allowed to do it in a language that I had on my resume lol. They must not have reviewed my resume beforehand because otherwise they wouldn't have given an interview to someone who didn't list a non-negotiable language on their resume. Like, if C# is absolutely necessary for this interview why did you call me? That's not even mentioning how language-specific hiring is a poor proxy for gauging actual SE skills.
I can't help but think this was a waste of time for all of us. I've done countless interviews and live coding exercises in my 10 year career, and this has been the only one that I considered hanging up on lol.
For anyone else struggling to find their Broomfield office on Google Maps, search for QED Broomfield.
