I got scheduled for a phone call with the hiring manager, which I expected to be technical, but was mostly a useless chat with no skill assessment and a vague description of the job. I still felt (and still believe) however I was a very good fit for the job as far as I could tell.
Soon after the call on Friday I received a ridiculous homework assignment on a doc attachment that was supposed to be completed in about 1-2 hours and uploaded on Azure. Now, apart from the fact that offline assignments are unfair (because there is no interactive conversation) and unethical (because my time has value too), that weekend my baby, my wife and I got sick with high fever, the washing machine broke down and a bunch of other problems. So I ended up reading the email on Sunday late night, to find out that the deadline was the following day, which is not acceptable. I stupidly tried to do it anyway, despite everything, and realized that it's impossible to complete it in 2 hours, which was already more than I could afford spending. Because there is no way you can spend time designing the model and the API, write all the tests for 300/400 lines of code (TDD without finishing? Or get some design and no tests?), upload it and verify it's working in this little time. Also because if you are new to Azure you have to create an account (and/or try to retrieve a Microsoft one which failed and took me ages), spend at least 20 mins with all the forms where you have to fill in, BTW including you credit/debit card details. Yes you have to, because they do not offer a time limited throwaway account for this purpose! You have to use your "free" one time subscription credit (I consumed a third, 60 Eur) you cannot use for anything else then. And still have your card there and remember to unsubscribe at some point before you start to pay out of your pocket. Did they link any guide or resource on how to create an account in the email? No, you have to search yourself, spend another 30 mins at least looking for their documentation which is outdated because the interface changed meanwhile, so again more time, to understand how to enable the repo to push the code to, how to debug because chances are that the first time it's not going to work. And you end up spending 2 hours for irrelevant stuff that has nothing to do with skill assessment which could be easily and more accurately be done by phone or F2F in 30/45 minutes with no risk of cheating. What they probably wanted to verify is that you are willing to trash your weekends: well, no, I very much prefer to spend them looking for other employers the next time, thank you.
On top of this I didn't hear back until after 3-4 weeks later, when I received their automatic message that I have been rejected as they closed the position. They don't even bother write to you directly. Quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to work with and for such people anyway. Lack of professionalism in every single step and detail. The test itself may sound cool and smart to them, but it's actually disrespectful and pointless since doesn't test any real engineering or coding skill; anybody with a little bit of experience could successfully do it. And even if you don't have a clue on how to do it there is plenty of guides online, or have a friend do it for you.
Bottom line: the whole process is amateurish, the lack of respect for the candidate annoying, probably the worst interview experience of my life.
