I interviewed for the Drive Integration Engineer (Role begins Summer 2026) position. My experience started positively. I first had a phone call with the recruiter, which went well, and then I was invited to a screening interview with the hiring manager. The hiring manager was professional, respectful, and helpful. He showed me a PDF, asked me about a chart, gave me a simple coding question, and even took time to explain parts of the chart and offer advice. Although I was later rejected after that stage, I accepted it, reflected on the experience, and focused on improving my skills for future opportunities. About a month later, I unexpectedly received another email from the recruiter saying I had an interview scheduled for the next day. I was surprised since I had already been rejected, but I was also excited and prepared seriously for it. Unfortunately, that second interview was a very disappointing experience. I joined the Microsoft Teams meeting 10 minutes early out of respect for the interview time and to make sure my camera and microphone were ready. One interviewer joined about 5 minutes late and apologized, then asked to wait for the others. More time passed, and eventually we started before everyone had arrived. None of the interviewers introduced themselves. While I was introducing myself, another interviewer joined and interrupted to discuss timing with the first interviewer. Later, another interviewer joined, and the last interviewer did not arrive until the final 5 minutes of the meeting. Throughout the interview, the process felt disorganized and unprofessional. There were long awkward silences, people seemed to be catching up in real time, and at one point an interviewer asked another if he wanted to ask me a question, only for him to say he was still trying to catch up because he had joined late. The final interviewer, who arrived at the very end, asked me how I handle deadlines, which felt ironic given the lack of respect for the scheduled interview time. What disappointed me most was not just the lateness, but the overall lack of professionalism. None of the interviewers turned on their cameras, none properly introduced themselves, and the interview gave the impression that my time was not respected. I understand that interviews can sometimes run behind schedule, and I always try to be understanding. However, candidate experience matters. My first interaction with the hiring manager was positive, but this final panel interview left a very poor impression. Based on this experience, I would not choose to interview with this team again.

There were 3 rounds total (phone screening with recruiter, hiring manager round, and engineering team round). The recruiter was nice and asked me basic questions on logistics, ‘tell me about yourself’, as well as to explain my experience with Python and C++. I had the hiring manager round shortly after, and he prepared a slide deck with details about the role and has a few questions for you to introduce yourself. Then he had a question on a graph with just the trend lines and bar charts and wanted you to explain what it meant. There was a short question on Python code to test knowledge of lists, tuples, and dictionaries. The hiring manager was very nice and conversational. At the end, he told me that he’ll be pushing me forward to his team of engineer. Overall, he organized a very structured interview and set good expectations for the next one. I had the next round about 2 weeks after that, and it was supposed to be with four engineers on the team. All of them had their cameras off. A couple were a few minutes late, and so we waited till they asked to tell them about myself. During my introduction, one of the engineers dropped out of the meeting and another engineer said he was usually busy at this time. After my introduction, no one said anything and I even asked if there was an issue with my mic in case they did not hear me, but they said they heard me just fine. There were no technical coding questions at all, but they asked a lot about my project and what my role was. They also asked about how I dealt with disagreements on my project design with teammates. It was mainly one of the engineers talking to me and occasionally asking the other guys if they had any questions for me. They left me some time to ask them questions, but once I had no more, they just quickly said thank you and bye. They did not give any clarification on next steps or any proper closure for the interview. I got the rejection email about 2 weeks after the last round.