I was contacted by a backcountry recruiter and asked to apply for a position as a Sr. UX Designer (BTW this title carries no meaning, because all of their UX designers are designated as "Sr."). After going through a phone screening I was invited to HQ for a day-long interview. I was asked to complete a "Homework Assignment", a sample UX project that I was asked to present on the day of the interview. I spent some late nights putting it together and I was excited about the company and the interview. And then... I showed up 15 min early for the interview, as instructed in the orientation documents. After waiting with the receptionist for 45 minutes, someone finally showed up to greet me. Apparently the recruiter was home sick. Ok, whatever. But 45 minutes? Really? The UX team was nice enough, and I had the chance to meet with a researcher and Product Owner. They all asked the same canned questions: What's your process? How do you work with others? Etc. It was a surprisingly stifling atmosphere, and by lunch, I could tell that these people didn't really like their jobs. It was a pretty stark contrast to the "we play all day" narrative on the jobs section of the backcountry.com website. Anyways, after following up with the recruiter (the one who was sick) and waiting for over a week to get any response, I got an email saying that I "hadn't made the list of finalists", or something to that effect. I was VERY surprised that they had asked me to come in for a day-long interview and complete a project/presentation when I wasn't even a finalist. To top it all off, I asked for some feedback on the interview and have not yet received a response. Overall the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. I wouldn't recommend interviewing (or working) there.