Unprofessional Interview Process
TL;DR - Full Sail's interview process is marred by unprofessionalism. They are a shop that lags in quality and automation. They will question your integrity at every turn and treat your time as if it has no value. My experience, which involved two interviews and two technical assessments, spanned over five weeks. I strongly advise against subjecting yourself to this process.
Full Sail posted a position for a team lead. I applied through a very professional recruiting firm. They had been trying to fill the position for a long time, but none of their candidates passed the tech assessment. The process was two technical assessments and two interviews. The first interview was a meet-and-greet with a director. He said, among other things, he wanted to improve the quality of his team's deliverables. I have much experience in this area and was open about what I could bring to the role. At the end of the interview, I asked him if I had what he was looking for, and he said yes (spoiler alert: The process should have ended here
The next step was an offline tech assessment. The hiring team went to great lengths to warn candidates about cheating. I took this as questioning my integrity without knowing me. The assessment involved solving a problem a senior Java developer would probably have some experience with. I had to use an online IDE platform I had no experience with, which took some time to get used to. A set of unit tests had to pass before the current team lead would consider the exercise a success. I found the 20 or so unit tests amateurish and nonstandard (I could have tested all the business requirements with five or six JUnit tests). I even found a bug in one of them. I successfully solved the problem without much trouble.
I was then told I would have to do an online coding assessment where the lead would "change" the test conditions to ensure I didn't cheat. Again, they questioned my integrity, which was irritating, but I accepted the second technical interview. The change to the requirements for the assessment resulted in rewriting 95% of the code to implement a different and even harder strategy. I didn't finish it after 40 minutes, so I tried to convey what design pattern choices I could use to solve the problem. The lead didn't understand my explanation. By the end of the interview, I learned that he doesn't know any GoF design patterns, couldn't describe any metrics that impact code maintainability or reliability, doesn't document code, has no test automation beyond unit, ridicules code linters, and doesn't know how much technical debt he is carrying with no plan on how to tackle it. I was shocked at how primitive his shop is. He would not have passed my technical interview, but I still saw the position as an opportunity. I did finish the changed assessment on my own that night. The approach worked as I described but probably wasn't an optimal one.
The final step in the process was another interview with the director, the lead, and a senior team member. They asked probing leadership questions, and I asked my share. I didn't realize until after the interview how vague they were about their overall code quality and how they would improve it.
It took them six days to decide to pass. “Too much QA experience” was the reason they gave me. I wasn’t surprised.
I don't care about the rejection. I never really felt comfortable with the lead I would have replaced. I think he's scared at how bad he'll look to upper management if his team's code is analyzed using industry-standard metrics. He shouldn’t because 90% of all shops have adequate software measurement processes, and everyone should get a pass the first time. What gets to me is the arrogance of that team as a whole. Their lackadaisical approach was so unprofessional. I stopped my job search when the final interview was scheduled until I received the rejection because I didn't want to jerk anyone around, thinking I would receive feedback from them in a day or two at worst. I've interviewed dozens of candidates alone and as part of panels. I always provide input to the hiring decision right after the interview ends. Waiting six days to let me know their hiring decision was unnecessary and very disrespectful. My decision to stop looking during those six days cost me real dollars.
Interestingly, I received an offer from another company just two weeks later. Their process was a stark contrast to Full Sail's. It involved a 60-minute tech interview, which was more challenging than the two Full Sail technical assessments, followed by a 30-minute behavioral interview. The entire process, from submission to offer, was completed in eight calendar days.