Saw a position on Linkedin that fit my background well and then applied on the Willowtree site. Next steps were a 1 way Sparkhire interview, hiring manager interview, and a whiteboard interview, all of which l completed. Next steps I was told were a very large take home assignment (would have taken 10+ hours, unpaid), and then a 6 hour final interview. This was by far the most intense requirements for a candidate I have ever heard of in my life.
During this entire process I asked how flexible the company was with working from home vs. in an office and heard conflicting stories (hiring manager said they were flexible, everyone else said it was in office at least 4 days a week, maybe all 5). I did some research found that their CEO in against working from home “after COVID” which is a deal breaker for me. One interview he was even quoted as saying he is “fundamentally against work from home.”
I never did the take home and took myself out of the process. If you are going to put candidates through a ridiculous hiring gauntlet and then are inflexible on where they work you are going to lose out on talent, simple as that.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at WillowTree in Jul 2024
Interview
Let me be clear up front: the actual hiring team was one of the most glowing interview experiences I've ever had. The problem is that the *company* made it into one of the most horrific interview experiences I've ever had. Their culture interview raised one of the greenest flags I've ever encountered in an interview -- "what does psychological safety mean to you?" But as much as I can believe the individuals who asked me this, the thing is... when WillowTree says they value psychological safety, WillowTree is lying. Because they have no problem rescinding a job offer if you ask too many questions after reading the fine print.
(On an incredibly related note, Glassdoor needs a 4th option when asking about whether you got one.)
Now that wasn't even the *only* lie. Adding insult to injury, these people had the audacity to then send me *a candidate survey* afterward, with the subject line "we'd love your feedback." Now, I understand that this is automated, but if you're using automation in your processes, you're also responsible for using it better than that. Even in the best case, soliciting feedback, after pulling a job offer on someone for any reason, is comically terrible.
This piece alone alone is easily the most spectacular failure I have encountered interviewing for any job anywhere. There's deserving to get embarrassed by the ways your processes go sideways, and then there's *literally asking for it.*
The first stage was a coding interview, and it was medium difficulty. The last stage was coding a whole project (there is some code and base already there) - it was pretty hard.
It was not a bad process, it went very quickly and the interviewers were very easy to talk to. It’s definitely not as stretched out as long as other processes
