Paradigm Software Developer interview questions

TLDR: Very positive impressions of the dev team and manager, but misleading info from HR about the salary range and a lowball offer ruined it for me. No salary range was posted. In the first call with HR, I was told the low end of the range they start at for this position was "low 80-thousands". I have approximately 1 year of professional experience and would have been happy with this amount, or probably even less if they'd been willing to negotiate at all. Interviews with 2 senior developers and the team manager left me with really positive impressions. The HR rep offered the job for $71,500, with no explanation or apology for the misleading info or why this was about $10k less per year than the low end of the described range. I asked about it, and it was a vague, hollow sounding answer about reviewing internal equity. I talked about a higher range, explained this would be a pay cut for me, and gave a few reasons why I believed more was warranted. They got back to me the next day refusing to negotiate upwards at all. I declined the offer. Salary.com puts the median for a developer with 0-2 years at $77,490. Their offer was more several thousand below this and more in line with an entry level job for someone with no professional experience. The job I got with no professional experience a year ago started at $70,000 with a provision to go up to $75,000 after 6 months pending positive reviews. Maybe the dev team is really great, but be prepared for HR nonsense and a lowball offer. Paradigm: This is a poor way to treat potential employees before they've even started. To the applicant, it seems like a huge red flag that the company probably treats employees badly, and is probably not willing to pay market rate salaries, and probably would be extremely stingy with raises as well. Consider posting specific and accurate salary ranges for listings to avoid wasting everyone's time, including your own senior developers and team managers. Consider not insisting on such lowball salaries and refusing to negotiate a single dollar. This seems great to you on paper right now to look at some budget numbers, but it is a terrible long term strategy. With substandard pay, you get people who are less talented and/or unemployed and truly desperate and willing to accept bad offers. This has significant downstream effects such as your software product becoming worse and losing quality, and having more bugs that cost actual dollars. It probably costs your company more money and headache in the long run in the form of higher turnover. People realize that they are not paid what they can get elsewhere, and simply have to leave for another job since any modest, small, or nonexistent raises a company like this probably offers will never make up the gap.

Contacted by recruiter via LinkedIn with a passive-aggressive followup message. Agreed on a time for a phone screen but never received confirmation. Managed to speak with recruiter on the phone afterwards. Recruiter was very rude, cold, and unhelpful. She asked several questions and then refused to elaborate on the specifics of the position, ending the call without providing details about the role. Waste of time and energy. Note to the company: fix your processes and provide relevant feedback like this to your people.