I was working under the shadow of a monolithic giant, where I probably could have spent my entire career. However, work there had become stagnant and my value had become underappreciated. I then, as you are now, began my search for other potential avenues for development shops. iTrellis sounded like an incredible place to work after not only reading several positive testimonials, but also meeting and talking with people who currently work for the company. It went without saying to send my resume iTrellis' way after hearing the great things about the company and its management / ownership. Soon after I had an email from their recruiter wanting to set up a phone interview. The phone interview was filled with pretty standard questions: "Why iTrellis?", "Why are you wanting to leave your current job?", "Strengths?", "Weaknesses?," "Salary expectation?", etc. The recruiter didn't make the interview seem so "standard", though. She was funny and witty; and, she actually made it personal. She spoke of her personal life and how it began her career in recruitment, how she began at iTrellis, and how much she loved working there. By this point I was starting to get really excited, as I hadn't felt much "love", for what was my current dev shop, in awhile. The interview ended with her asking me if I would like to continue on to Phase II of the process: Code Project. Of course I said yes and she informed me that she would have the details to my email box promptly. I am not going to dive too far into it, but essentially I received a congratulatory email of sorts saying that I have made it the second part of the interview process. Attached to this email were three choices for a project, each seemingly more difficult then the last, along with specific completion instructions and a time constraint. I completed my project and submitted via the instructions. I quickly received an email from the recruiter stating that my project will be reviewed over the next week or so and to patiently wait a response. She also mentioned not to hesitate to ask any questions about the process, should any arise. I waited. A week passed and I was beginning to feel anxious. I sent an email to the recruiter in an attempt to fish for some sort information. She let me know my project was still being reviewed and that I would hear from her soon. Sure enough, after a few more days I had received an email from her. However, it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. In her attempt to be as transparent as possible, she informed me that the position I was applying for was no longer available for unforeseen reasons. This left me feeling pretty beaten, but she reiterated that iTrellis would love to have me and that she would be in touch for when the position would be available again. She was true to her word. She actually sent me weekly updates on the status of the position and I could tell that iTrellis genuinely thought I was a great candidate and wanted to work with me to keep me still interested. After a few weeks of updates I had finally received the email I was hoping for. The email that asked if I was still interested in moving on to Phase III of the interview process: Code Review. I said yes and then immediately went to refresh my memory on my project as it had been around a month to a month and a half since I wrote it. The interview was at the iTrellis office in downtown Seattle. It was a three stage 1:1 interview process where each 1:1 took around 45 minutes to an hour. It was a little intimidating, but nothing too scary. Each interviewer took a different approach at my project and it was actually really cool to sit down and hear their opinions and to defend my work. I could tell that they took the process seriously and had already thoroughly reviewed my work. Not more than a week passed before I received an official offer. I am extremely happy that I stuck through the process, as iTrellis has been nothing but exceptional so far.