Met with HR person at a local restaurant for lunch. The process was informal and seemed more like a discussion. I appreciated the invite and the nice lunch! HR person seemed a nice guy and very easy to talk to.
I did not get a clear vision of the position. The person interviewing me was vague on it and it seemed it was done purposefully. It may be he was trying to find a possible best fit for me but it was an odd to have uncertainty.
This company does not allow remote work/work at home for senior staff That's odd for an MSP where I've for years worked from home as a senior engineer/manager, managing clients and staff remotely. To me not permitting remote work seems "old school". At the very least allow part-time tele-commute.
From what I could tell, the pay structure for engineering is little unusual: you get a base salary, pretty low from what I was presented, and then you can make an hourly wage above the normal 40 hours. This was presented as a non-exempt position. Engineering has always been classified as exempt in my experience. To me, this compensation method seemed a way to get skilled labor for cheap and have them work more to earn what would be a normal wage. I could be incorrect on this, but it is the way I interpreted it.
I never heard back from the HR guy after repeated communication attempts, except for one-liner messages. All he would respond is that he wanted to have me interview with the CIO/CEO. That never happened. Here's a suggestion: if you don't feel a candidates are a good fit for your company, tell them and don't waste our time.
Company seemed like a typical MSP otherwise. I've had several other interviews with MSPs since this interview and they were more structured and the role to be filled was clearly defined. I was also provided immediate feedback.
