I applied and was reached out to to set up an initial phone screening with the recruiter. When it was time for the 15 min phone call, the recruiter was late, so they didn't have to ask me the questions the hiring team wanted to ask. So they said they would call me right back after their next 15 min call....fast forward over an hour later the recruiter finally calls me back to get the questions asked. Frustrating, but no biggie. I was asked to move onto the next round for a video call with the head of product and one of the software engineers. The recruiter told me they would be grilling me to make sure I knew react and that I should take some time to brush up on it. I feel very confident with react, but still took the time to brush up on it among other things to prepare for the call. Fast forward to the interview...I was greeted by the head of product who immediately looked like he could care less about being there. He was sitting in a conference room leaning over with his elbows on his knees. He barely made any introductions while we waited for the engineer to join. I think he smiled once maybe twice the entire call. Once everyone had joined, I was told I'd have 5-8 mins at the end to ask any questions I had and then I just immediately started getting grilled with questions. I honestly have no idea if the questions I was even being asked pertained to the role because I was never given a breakdown of the role or what someone in that role would even be working on...also not a single question about react other than why it's performant...so the recruiter and the rest of the team were clearly not aligned. It really just seemed that instead of trying to learn about what I do know, the main interviewer was more concerned with continually hounding me on what I don't know and just grilling me harder on those topics. Then we had a coding challenge using codepen. It would have been nice to know this beforehand because I wasted time trying to figure out how to get the code to rerun after making changes. The head of product and the engineer both told me different things on how to get it to work, which wasted more time. The code challenge was in JavaScript and was so easy compared to questions the interviewer was asking me. Once this was over, I had 2 mins left to ask questions...and at this point I still didn't know what the structures of the team looks like, what their process is, what the product this role would be working on even is - is it a web app or a software, literally nothing about the actual job. Even though the engineer was super nice and seemed like a cool guy who I wished could have done more of the interview, at this point I was so over getting grilled and made to feel like I know nothing about software development that I asked one question and just ended it. I honestly had never had such a grueling interview and it was not even from the difficulty. You'd think that an interviewer would want you to do well and give you a chance to be sold on the company/position too, but not this time. It felt like the complete opposite and I could not wait for it to be over. It was just upsetting because I feel like I didn't even get the chance to show how skilled of a developer I am. One last thing to note is that the recruiter mentioned to me that the position has been open for so long (I had seen it starting in October 2023 and my interview was in February 2024 because I applied in January of 2024) because they have excellent tenure at the company and want to hire someone who is going to stick around. Well, after this interview it seems more like this because the team is not aligned, the main interviewer is focusing on people's weaknesses rather than strengths, and the interview is set up in a way that only the company is interviewing you and you do not have a chance to interview the company. It's all very unappealing, unwelcoming, and disrespectful to the interviewees time and accomplishments. The interview was incredibly one sided. I truly hope my experience was an anomaly.