Shuttl approached me for the Tech Lead (TL) role. I had a screening call with the hiring manager and we then scheduled a video call for the first round. The HR said the first round will be an Algo/DS/Coding round. But on the video call, they told me it will be a Systems Design round instead.
During the first round, the interviewer talked about the team, organization structure, career ladder, etc. But he also revealed information Shuttl never shared before the process: he said Shuttl used both TLs and Engineering Managers (EM) for management and that it already had a couple EMs on the team. I approached HR to clarify this and HR said Shuttl didn’t have any EMs on the team, contradicting the interviewer. This was a confusing situation. Shuttl later shared reasons for the information discrepancy between the HR and the interviewer.
Shuttl rejected me after the first round, and I was curious to know the reasons for rejection, primarily because I had a similar round at another company the same week, with similar questions and similar answers, and I got through there.
I approached HR to get feedback from the interviewer, a simple question-expected answer-actual answer kind of feedback. Unfortunately, HR never got back and the entire experience turned out to be an utter waste of time and energy.
Key Takeaways
1. Miscommunication b/w HR and engineering team - At two separate instances: nature of the first round (coding vs systems design), and team structure (TLs vs TLs + EMs)
2. Candidate-unfriendly HR Policies - HR never got back with interview feedback.