Applied online, then I got contacted by the hiring manager directly using someone else email address, I think an HR email address which made no sense to me. These were the interview stages:
1) Video interview with the hiring manager and CMO
2) Case study
3) Case study presentation through a video call in front of the hiring manager and CMO
4) Video interview with other two team members
I didn't feel much professionalism from the company from the very first email I received but I still decided to give it a go and get to know more about the company.
The first interview was fine meaning that I talked for 1 hour and they said thank you. I was already on the alert side as there are absolutely no reviews online on this company, the hiring manager had probably 1-year experience and the salary on offer was way below the average and other companies I was interviewing for.
For the second interview, I prepared a strong case study presentation as I always do in these cases and presented it to the same interviewers. I felt like the interviewers didn't really get much of what I was talking about. After a "thank you for the presentation" the hiring manager started asking typical interview questions to which I already answered in the previous interview but that was okay too to me. The problem is that after 6 or 7 extremely typical questions I realised that the hiring manager was actually reading the questions from a blog online as I could tell from his glasses. I've been asked literally something like 25 motivational questions taken by a "the best interview questions". I think I was the first person interviewed by the hiring manager and the whole thing felt so awkward, unprofessional and ungrateful to the work I've done for the company. The other interviewer was doing something else on his laptop and never said a thing.
Initially, I was told it was a 2 stages interview process but it obviously became 5 stages as I was invited to a further interview with other team members. Here things got even more awkward as one of the interviewer proudly told me they're earning results for the first year which were so disappointing for me to hear for such an old startup already. From that moment I realised this company is not exactly a reliable/sustainable choice.
Got an automatic rejection email saying I wasn't a good fit after a while.