Deft Interview Questions
& Process

This interview process was a waste of time. It's structured, starting with the hiring manager. If they like you, you proceed to a technical interview. During my interview, there were two interviewers. One was chill and down-to-earth, the other seemed entitled. The chill one asked good questions to test technical knowledge, but the other seemed to want to quiz me on every situation he'd encountered in his 30+ years of networking. It's confusing to be moved forward to interview with 5 different people in a 2.5-hour session after a 45-minute technical interview. They say they have startup policies and avoid big company politics, but this is the worst interview experience I've had. Just be upfront with candidates and don't be that company that makes people interview 20 times.

I got an email saying they were interested in my background and asked about my availability for a video interview. The interview skipped my background and went straight into technical questions, which wasn't mentioned beforehand, so be prepared. Two of the three interviewers seemed completely uninterested from the start, barely saying anything, while the third was at least professional. Honestly, after a few minutes of their disinterest, I mirrored their attitude. They asked standard questions like how to find Windows services or what command shows free space on Linux. After about 10 minutes, the main interviewer said they'd contact me in the next week, and the other two just briefly looked up and said goodbye. It was strange they even bothered interviewing me, given I mentioned I came from a development background and might not know the best RAID setup offhand. The two interviewers seemed bothered by having to 'participate.' I got rejected the same day, and they even emailed me again about a week later with the same news. I really didn't care for the interview process, and this is the first negative experience I've had that made me want to write a review.

Since it was over the phone due to Covid-19, the interview began with some basic questions about my background before moving on to my experience, which was the main focus and took up most of the time. Then, I was asked about how I was a good fit for the job and how I would handle certain situations. Finally, I got to ask some questions about the role or the company. The interviewer mentioned they would follow up on Friday, but I had to reach out to them to confirm if I advanced to the next round.

This recruiting experience was distasteful for the reason that it was outright hostile and I'm not sure why (after all - they reached out to me!) I asked the basic questions one would expect to know as a leader of an organization. Every question was met with a tone of irritation and I just wanted to end the conversation as soon as possible. There was an abrupt and rote description of "next steps" which I then repeated back in summary to confirm my understanding - which was met with a terse, "I'm not saying you're going to the next step. I'm making no guarantees." I withdrew my contention for the role immediately due to the caustic nature of this conversation. Ironic for a company that says, "We humanize technology..." and, "your role is all about people."