I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth and pleasant the interview process was. After reading all the negative comments I was ready for a rocky journey, but it turned out to be great. :)
A friend of a friend of mine who works at GitLab told me that I may be a good fit for the job and referred me to one of their recruiters. After sending in my application (CV, cover letter, portfolio, project links) I had a quick 15-minute screener interview with the tech recruiter. It was a pleasant chat which confirmed that it makes sense to continue with the interview process. After that I had three more interviews that were all a mix of behavioral (STAR) and skills/ experience/ design process questions.
One of the interviews was with two product designers and researchers who were my peers. Another interview was with my manager, and the last one was with the Director of UX. During my last interview I presented a UX case study.
Every interviewer was very friendly and clearly tried to make me feel comfortable. I think some of them could be a little more prepared, for example I think one of the people I interviewed with didn't look at my CV, but only looked at my LinkedIn profile which a rarely use and so wasn't 100% complete.
It's also worth mentioning that 3 out of the 5 people I interviewed with were women, which made me feel more included and less intimidated as a woman joining a highly technical team.
I have to say that I've put in almost 40 hours into preparing my CV specifically for this job, writing a great cover letter, putting together case studies to highlight my design process in a way that shows my work style is a match for GitLab, and reading their never ending Handbook. If you're trying to get a job at GitLab, I highly recommend that you take the time to read the Hiring and the UX design sections of the handbook to make sure you know what they're looking for in a candidate.
After the last interview, I was asked for 3 references and to pass a background check. They actually emailed or called all of my three references, so make sure you provide high quality references.
Several days after my last interview I got an email saying that they'd like to make an offer. The offer was made on a video call, which was a nice touch. I was able to ask all of my questions. The contract came several days after the offer call.
