A recruiter contacted me about the position, and I submitted my resume. The position was said to be for a Software Engineer who is "looking to get into Mobile Development", which I was, at this point having been limited to desktop client applications in C# / WPF as a team lead.
I was brought in for a first interview. The first person (architect) had me do some light coding exercises and asked some reasonable technical questions. The second asked me more about background and things I've done. The third step was a video call with a 2-person team in Pisa, Italy. I was then asked several questions about Binary Search Trees (time for search, time for insertion, when to rebalance, etc). I struggled terribly with this, as I hadn't seen it since data structures class in college. Also some other things I don't remember, but it was thoroughly stressful. Finally, I spoke with the product manager, who asked some more general questions. Total time was 4 hours.
I was given a code exercise for homework, and invited back for a second interview, which shocked me after my performance on the Pisa call.
At the second interview, I spoke with a senior VP, who asked me much more about my technical background and noted that I had no web experience. He bluntly pointed out that he had 2 concerns about hiring me. One, was that he could go and get someone with web and/or mobile experience. The other was that, given my lack of web experience, and my current salary, that salary expectations could be a problem. He asked what I wanted and I just said I want what I make now (though I had been told by the recruiter it should be a 10% bump, but that now seemed doubtful). This was the first time I was told that web experience was a prerequisite for "looking to get into mobile development", and I started to wonder what I was doing there if that was the case.
The questions the SVP asked on my background were very thorough. I was asked what I did at each college internship, and what they paid me. I tried to explain what I did technically at each but was cut off in the interest of time. Then I was asked what my starting and ending salary at each of my previous jobs was. At my first job out of college, my salary did not rise much over a few years, and he asked me why. Then he asked me why I got very good raises at my current job. He mentioned that hiring me would be a "leap of faith" and that I wanted to get in to this new field and "skip all the stuff in the middle".
I was then put on a video call with the CTO in Pisa, Italy. He asked me why they should hire me with no web experience. Then he asked me if I knew anything about mobile development. I said no, and he said "Well at least tell me some buzzwords". He then asked me how I would design the software at my last job as a web application. I awkwardly fumbled with this for what seemed like forever. Seemed pretty disastrous.
Finally, the architect walked me through my code exercise, which wasn't too bad. Overall, I was there for 2.5 hours, which is the longest second interview I've ever had.
There was indecision on their end for 2 weeks. After some prodding by the recruiter, they ultimately decided, via what may have been a split decision, not to extend an offer.
They probably should not have wasted all of our time if my lack of web experience was such a glaring problem.
