The place had a funny smell, and the guy had to be paged to remember to meet with me. Initially, they seemed very excited about meeting with me, that went away quickly as soon as the interview started I had to prove myself constantly, alas, I guess that's the way you can be when you have work available. I met with a Director of some sort, and went over my qualifications, interests and experience. Nothing off the wall or unusual, except for the code sample. Most places seem to be fine with a few pages of code sample, nothing complex. Here, they ask you to build something serious, what they estimate as 8 hours of work, which is a fair estimate. The most negative part of the experience was that after spending my time building their code sample, I didn't hear anything! Not a peep, good or bad. I would have appreciated some feedback.
All I got was an unspoken 'thanks for trying, now go away'.
The next step in the process was supposed to be a panel interview.
The culture was very corporate, cubes and open desks, at least they let you choose mac, linux or pc. They tried though, there is the compulsory foosball table, chess boards and guitar hero.
There's a combination of beaters and beamers in the parking lot, so I assume the executives are well paid, but not so for the programmers. They balked at my initial salary request, which was inline with what I've earned before as a programmer in the area. When you consider they bill their expert programmers out at very high rates, you'd expect the compensation would be greater. I mean, the whole process seems very elitist, 'we want the best of the best', so why aren't the best being paid better?
