In accordance with Glassdoor's Community Guidelines, I won't reference anyone from CircleCI by name, title or association. At a high-level I had an offer pulled from me after successfully going through all interview steps.
Interview Steps were as follows:
1. 30 min HR phone screen on presentation experience, technical skills, etc.
2. 30 min interview with SE director on DevOps-related questions as well as miscellaneous opinions on technology in general
3. A take home technical communication exercise: a series of Docker debugging challenges and a web app build & deployment through a CircleCI pipeline
4. live review session of technical communication exercise answers with a Senior SE
5. presentation interview to panel of SEs/Account Executives: 5-10 min pitch on technology of choice
If you group steps 3 & 4, I had gone through the process at a cadence of one step per week and had thought I especially clicked with everyone involved. In fact, after step 2 HR decided to proactively maintain text communication with me for the following steps. While I did appreciate the HR's encouragement and support, this put me in a somewhat uncomfortable position as I felt that the HR was creating a covert contract for my prioritization of CircleCI and potential negotiation leniency if/when an offer were to come down the road (this is important to remember in the context of my experience written below).
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I successfully went through the challenging, yet objectively fair month-long interview process, only to be given the run-around when it came to the offer stage.
After my final interview, I was told an offer is ready for me, but HR wanted to have a “pre-verbal offer discussion” to re-discuss comp. I was okay with their target OTE comp, but did not want to comment on the number provided in isolation. HR seemed especially offended by my asking about two things:
1. other parts of the total comp package information
2. one week more time to hear back from one company and see out one other final round interview
Apparently, CircleCI has a strict turnaround policy in which candidates are only given 3 days to respond to formal offers. I would have been okay with that if it weren't for the fact that HR would not give me a clear verbal offer and could not answer my basic comp questions outside of OTE (i.e. benefits, stock options, etc.). It felt like I was being asked to commit to CircleCI without being provided clear and complete information.
Despite having two calls with HR and two calls with the hiring SE team across the week in which my offer was supposedly being “held” to clarify and negotiate role / comp details, CircleCI eventually pulled my offer early the following week. I had thought we were all finally on the same page, only for HR to then simply send me a generic email stating the company will no longer move forward with me, because they "can’t meet my needs”. When I followed up with the hiring SE team, I was, again, told the same thing and denied a clarifying call.
To be clear, throughout my multiple conversations with the decision makers involved post-interview process I never indicated hard comp needs in excess of what CircleCI could provide. I had asked if the company had the flexibility to (slightly) increase the base salary, give a signing bonus (to cover the opportunity cost of missing out on my current employer’s year-end bonus), and combine their WFH & mental health stipends into one, but dropped them after being told there is no flexibility on the offer.
For a company that prides itself on being “inclusive, empathetic, and respectful” my post-interview experience was anything but. Overall, I feel like I got punished and subsequently stonewalled for trying to finish out one other interview process (which I did my absolute best to line up with CircleCI’s process) and do my due diligence in negotiating / gathering information to make a decision. Obviously, if I went through the entire interview process and am investing even more personal time / energy to further ask clarifying questions, I’m taking CircleCI very seriously. (It was one of my top two companies in consideration and frankly my top choice before this whole fiasco.) The company may have perceived my questions and 1-week time request as disinterest, but I was just trying to stay even keeled in the absence of a clear & final offer to me.
