Let me save you the a full day's worth of work you’ll never get back.
Northbeam put me through six rounds of interviews —six.... for a small Series A startup. For reference, I’ve interviewed at Meta, and even their notoriously rigorous process didn’t feel this exhausting or pointless.
What made it worse wasn’t the length — it was the stunning disorganization behind it. Each session felt like a different interviewer had been handed a different job description and told to wing it. There was zero alignment on what they were actually evaluating. No consistent framework, no clear rubric. Just an endless parade of “show us more projects” with a vibe-check energy that telegraphed one thing loud and clear: Northbeam has any idea what they’re looking for.
The communication across interviewers? Repetitive and contradictory. The purpose of each round? Murky at best. This isn’t a rigorous hiring process — it’s a fishing expedition dressed up as one.
After clearing round after round — each session roughly an hour long — I was told I wasn’t rejected, but that leadership needed to “re-evaluate the direction of the role.” When I asked what that meant, the explanation was remarkable in its absurdity: the same role, but requiring fewer qualifications.
My read? The design director, moved forward on hiring without securing internal alignment, budget approval, or even a coherent sense of what the team actually needed. The result was a recruiting process that wasted the time of every candidate, every interviewer, and quite possibly the company’s own leadership — all to arrive back at square one.
This isn’t a minor fumble. It reflects a fundamental lack of operational maturity from the people tasked with building the team. If this is how Northbeam handles hiring, one has to wonder how they handle everything else.
Avoid. Your time, portfolio, and professional energy deserve better than this mediocrity.
