Applied through LinkedIn and heard back a few days later directly from the CEO to setup an interview. Kia struck me as an ambitious leader who is very passionate about his product and has a really clear direction he wants to take the business.
To me, the interview started off very well and I could quickly tell we shared a lot of common views on what makes a good customer experience. He mentioned that the CS team in the office was very small and that I might be expected to help out with technical support from time to time in addition to the onboarding role I applied for. I didn't have any issue with this (though I mentioned I would prefer to focus on onboarding) because I understand in a company's early years everyone has to pitch in.
The tides changed a little bit when I mentioned that the 5 sick day policy seemed a bit archaic (which it is, in Vancouver's tech sector) and that one bad flu could potentially eat up all your sick days. I asked what kind of flexibility the company would have in a case like that, to which Kia told me it would need to be evaluated case by case (versus maybe additional sick days coming from vacation days) because these policies were in place for the stability of the business.
This is very true, however to offer a great customer experience, a company needs to look after its people first, and my visible discontent around this policy was probably what led to no offer.
