First: HR Screen Call (maybe 30 min, I forgot)
Second: Tech Screen Call (1-2 people, between 30 min - 1 hr)
Third: Code Sample (Not an easy one liner if you actually care, this could easily consume several hours of your time to address properly, took me a week to do as I spent a few hours each night after work to complete it) . I wish I had listened to the other person who mentioned that they stopped the interview process there... :(
Final: Onsite marathon interview bonanza - Spent time white boarding, speaking about systems architecture, application architecture, lunch discussions, and "code pairing" session. Total time spent was about +6 hrs. I hope you don't have a job because you'll be taking a day off of work for this...
The "code pairing" was really a session where 2 other individuals try to walk you achieving objectives through some bash cli stuff that a sysadmin might perform if he had no modern DevOps tools available (think basic things like log forwarding and aggregation and configuration management). I felt like I was dealing with a person with little patience and an ego complex or something. I was not really afforded the time to read through what I was trying to research when I looked up commands to run (since this stuff is rarely done in a Production environment when you have the proper tooling in place) and felt like I was being shuffled along.
So, after burning through so much time, and receiving positive feedback on every other aspect of the interview process I heard back "we're going to pass because of the code pairing". I think I was a victim of nitpicking and ego tripping on the "code pairing" section. It seemed like I was constantly getting guided (felt forced/rushed) into a direction they wanted to go into and forced down their own desired troubleshooting path. Eventually, I just sat back and stopped resisting because it seemed like the person wanted to solve it themselves and was borderline combative. Or at least thats how it seemed after supposedly passing all other areas good remarks and feedback. I'm still in disbelief that I did not get an offer because they think I don't have enough systems level knowledge (stuff you can literally google and spend a few min reading). The sad thing is, they lost out on good talent because of that section and the way it was executed and feedback was provided on. A code pairing session should be more about getting an understanding of collaborating with an individual and etc. Instead, it was used to try to quiz be on shell commands.
Fyi, I'm already a seasoned DevOps engineer with full pipeline/platform implementation/maintenance experience. And I mean every single aspect of the pipeline, which is a rarity these days.
The "code pairing" was the only negative experience I had with the interview process. Pretty much everyone else was great to interact with, did non inject ego into questioning, and offered ample time to inquire about various aspects of the role.
I'm obviously frustrated that this didn't work out. But mostly because I really enjoyed the dialogue and feedback from the other engineers from various teams and would have looked forward to working with the more seasoned engineers with platform experience and growing within the organization. I felt like there was a good culture fit and that it was obvious I had depth in various areas that would allow me to immediately contribute.
Oh, and that code sample I spent so much time on... never even discussed during the onsite interview! So, I'm left wondering what value that brought because to me it was pointless if it's not going to be discussed onsite.
I really don't know what to say at this point... Buyer beware, I guess, when it comes to trying for a DevOps role here, because something is obviously wrong with this process/people involved.
