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1703 points danrocks | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0.935s | source | bottom

Recently I interviewed with Stripe for an engineering MoM (Manager of Managers) for one of their teams. I interview regularly, so I am used to many types of processes, feedback mechanisms, and so on. I won't go into details about the questions because there's nothing special about them, but I wanted to share some details of my experience for people thinking of interviewing there.

1) About 35-40% of the interviewers started their questioning by saying "I will only need 20 minutes for this", while emphasizing it is an important leadership position that they are hiring for. So 20 minutes is all needed to identify "important, critical leaders"? What a strange thing to say - also a GREAT way to make candidates feel important and wanted!

2) There is significant shuffling of interviewers and schedules. One almost has to be on-call to be able to react quickly.

3) For an engineering manager position, I only interviewed with only technical person. To me it hints that Engineering MoM is not a very technical position.

4) Of all the people I spoke to, the hiring manager was the one I spoke the least with. The phone screen was one of the "I only need 20 minutes for this" calls. The other one was quite amusing, and is described below.

5) After the loop was done, the recruiter called me to congratulate me on passing, and started discussing details of the offer, including sending me a document described the equity program. Recruiter mentioned that the hiring manager would be calling me to discuss the position next.

6) SURPRISE INTERVIEW! I get a call from the hiring manager, he congratulates me on passing the loop, then as I prepare to ask questions about the role, he again says "I need to ask you two questions and need 20 minutes for this". Then proceeds to ask two random questions about platforms and process enforcement, then hangs up the call after I answer. Tells me he'd be calling in a week to discuss the position.

7) I get asked for references.

8) After passing the loop, have the recruiter discuss some details of the offer, have the hiring manager tell me they'd be calling me after a week, I get ghosted for about 3.5 weeks. References are contacted and feedback is confirmed positive.

9) I ping the recruiter to see when the offer is coming - it's not coming. They chose another candidate. I am fine with it, even after being offered verbally, but the ghosting part after wasting so much of my time seems almost intentional.

10) I call up a senior leader in the office I applied to, an acquaintance of mine. His answer: "don't come. It's a mess and a revolving door of people". I was shocked with the response.

11) I get called by the recruiter saying that another director saw my feedback and is very interested in talking to me and do an interview loop.

Guess I'm not joining, then.

I am ok with passing loops, being rejected, I've seen it all. But being ghosted after acceptance is a first. What a bizarre place this is.

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ichydkrsrnae ◴[] No.29388434[source]
In your mind you imagine an HR professional planning your loop, interviewers that are genuinely interested in you, a hiring manager who's carefully read your resumé and has specific questions about your experience. You just (wasted|spent) five or six years and $200,000 on your four year degree. They better be interested, right?

Not.

In reality, a hiring manager clicked on your resume because an algorithm suggested it, told HR to setup a loop, and then promptly forgot you until the day you showed up.

If you're one of the lucky ones, your resume might have actually been read by a human.

The interviewers on the loop are probably not even on the team you'll join if hired.

There's a 90% chance they haven't even read the job requisition for the position you're applying for, if they could even find it. I've had to interview people blind without requisition or resume, and yes I did feel like an idiot both times, a rude one.

The person sitting across from you asking questions probably first learned of your very existence 15 minutes before it began; not because of disinterest, but because HR assigned the interview with that short of a window! re: x out sick, y in important meeting, etc.

All of this is true for at least 2 FAANGs and 1 MSFT in my experience as an interviewer and interviewee on over 50 loops over a decade.

What I'm saying is there is no spit or polish to the hiring process, not even at competitive companies, not even at the big ones, perhaps especially so because the assumption will be that you actually know what you're doing since you were bold enough to apply and even bolder to attend an interview loop at one of these "amazing" companies.

The musical chairs you experienced at Stripe, if explained at all, will be calendar conflicts, meeting overruns, sick employees, fire drills within, etc., all of those ambiguities that constantly interrupt IT. The show doesn't stop within because you're being interviewed on Wednesday. You are not the show. That $1000 suit you're wearing, the only suit you'll ever buy or ever wear ever again, bought you 60 minutes (or 20 at Stripe for Mgr of Mgrs).

The real explanation you will never know, but something as facile as the third guy on the loop not liking the fact that you have a full head of hair and he has none is actually sufficient, if you understand what I mean, that hiring is messy and opaque and human and, therefore, often ridiculous.

Would you believe one of these companies has had for decades now, as a core competency to hire for, “A tolerance for ambiguity”? I always loved that one.

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1. temp67531 ◴[] No.29389564[source]
Well it's seems like in 2021 with so much tech and automation resources available it should be possible to set up a process that does not ghost candidates.
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2. ichydkrsrnae ◴[] No.29389641[source]
You are implying this is intentional. That has not been established. For all we know, an essential person to the hiring process died from COVID, putting some real ghost in the ghosting.

The CEO responded. He doesn't agree that this is norm, but he can't, can he?

One person, one story, n equals one. 1 does not equal 10,000. Worse, hiring has x^n variables. He could have nailed the interview, astonished absolutely everybody into hiring him, only to be outcompete the very next day by the guy who wrote the book on managing managers at financial institutions.

The attempt to amplify this as something oft-repeated at Stripe lacks evidence. “I've heard this” and “I've heard that” about Stripe is hearsay, secondary, questionable at best.

Doesn't this post strike you as mildly disgruntled?

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3. ichydkrsrnae ◴[] No.29389736[source]
That's not a fair response. I clearly see what you're saying. Of course you're right. It's only decent they close the loop, but the reality is it's messy.

LCA might have a policy specifically precluding Stripe from communicating anything with regards to an unsuccessful interview.

4. avh02 ◴[] No.29390275[source]
> who wrote the book on managing managers at financial institutions

I've been around and worked with people who have written books, maybe not "the" books (one of them might have been, actually) - and honestly, one of the people who wrote a book was one of the worst developers I had worked with. The other was good but extremely lazy.

The one who wrote what might have been "the" book on a topic was (in my eyes) a fraud, he was fired shortly after he was brought on to consult, along with the CEO and marketing dept which brought him in.

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5. ◴[] No.29391341{3}[source]
6. csunbird ◴[] No.29391410[source]
>The CEO responded. He doesn't agree that this is norm, but he can't, can he?

I think, the CEO responding has no impact at all, as the options for him is to reply exactly in the way he responded to this thread or not reply at all. Either way, he can not admit anything going wrong within his company, so it is meaningless.