First, there's a take home programming assignment which is to be completed ideally in under two hours. The program is an appointment scheduling application where you're asked to design and implement a web service which will handle users requesting appointment registration. It's fairly straightforward in it's requirements and you'll submit it via git. Once they reviewed the take home assignment, they reached out to let me know they'd like to move on to a formal interview which was entirely online due to COVID. They got me setup for a 5 hour interview online with various teams covering different topics. - Session 1 was the coding portion. I was asked to create an application which read user posts from an endpoint and then we'd process them to find the longest sentence amongst the posts. I wrote this in Java which proved challenging as the endpoint they had setup for me to call was actually a gitlab hosted link, not a REST service, so you cannot read you have to scrape. The interviewers for this session were friendly and understanding that it was hard to call given it's not an actual service. - Session 2 was application design. The interviewers had a UI mockup and I was asked to design the back end and database structure to support it. There was lots of discussion around how I'd store this information in the database, what services would be called, what the JSON payloads would look like, etc. It was role playing an engineer seeking requirements from their product owner. It was genuinely very fun and my favorite part of the interview. The interviewers were hilarious and very talented, this portion made Maven very memorable. - Session 3 was more behavioral questions administered by just one interviewer. They were super friendly and kind. They asked about times when I've made a mistake, how I would approach different situations, and what I thought of X Y Z. It was just getting a feel for how I problem solve and interact with others. - Session 4 was with the engineering director and where you'd learn the most about the actual position and job you'd be doing. We talked a little about the teams, org structure, and position levels/titles. I felt like a cow being pushed through a processing line. There wasn't much emotional connection or warmness during this session and it wasn't long enough to get a full idea of what the position would be like. A few days after the formal interview was over they reached back out quickly with feedback that they wanted to proceed with an offer. The offer was very competitive. One thing stood out to me, they specifically said "We're going to get together a number because we want to come back to you with an offer you're genuinely excited about. We want you here." They really understand people, and made me feel special.

Had a bad experience. Recruiters aren't professional or have any kind of empathy. My initial interview was scheduled for Monday, but the recruiter did not call at the planned time. I waited and offered to be available any time that day. He suggested rescheduling to the next day, and I agreed, as I was genuinely excited about the role. On Tuesday, just an hour before the rescheduled call, I began experiencing severe period pain. I have PCOS and dysmenorrhea, and my symptoms during this time can be physically intense and difficult to manage. I didn’t want to cancel the call last minute, so I informed the recruiter ahead of time that I was unwell and might be a little slower to respond. I also asked whether the conversation would be casual or technical, so I could try my best to prepare in the moment. Despite being in pain and on medication, I showed up and shared my experience and past projects as clearly as I could. After the call, I followed up with an email explaining that I wasn’t at my best and offered to have another conversation to go deeper into my work once I felt better. Instead, I received a rejection. There are many companies out there, but I was interested in Maven for a reason. I specifically wanted to work at a company that understands what women go through, because I live with it every month. Getting rejected specifically because I couldn’t perform my best due to severe period pain was hard enough, but coming from Maven, a woman-founded company that works on women’s health, it felt especially discouraging. If I had been told in advance that the call would be technical, I would’ve immediately asked to reschedule. But I wasn’t given that information, and I tried to show up in good faith despite my condition. I may not have been able to answer every technical question in full detail, but I was doing my best under very difficult circumstances. I expected a level of empathy and flexibility, especially from a company that exists to address this exact gap in healthcare.