I went through an extensive interview process with Maker, totaling over 11 hours across multiple stages:
- HR Screening
- Online coding challenge (2 hours)
- Technical Interviews
- - Interview with the founding engineer
- - Interview with the head of frontend
- - Interview with the technical lead
(Each lasted 1–1.5 hours, all separate sessions)
- CEO Interviews (Part 1 & 2, totaling 3 hours)
- - Part 1: A 1.5-hour “campfire talk” that felt more like a podcast than an interview. The CEO emphasized trust and honesty as core values and compared the company to a sports team rather than a “family.” While the messaging seemed aligned with FAANG-style rhetoric, it felt somewhat forced for a 10-15 engineer startup, especially with signs of micromanagement. This session barely touched on my experience before the CEO had to leave for another call, requesting a follow-up.
- - Part 2: A more structured 1.5-hour interview, covering my career in exhaustive detail—from my college thesis (despite graduating over 10 years ago) to every job, team, goal, and achievement since 2014. Some questions felt unrelated, such as how hard I studied in college. Towards the end, I asked about company challenges and Glassdoor reviews, and once again, I was reminded that honesty and trust were their foundational values. The CEO also made a point to clarify that they don’t work with candidates who “double-date” (i.e., work multiple jobs at the same time), which came across as oddly defensive, given our prior discussions about transition timelines.
The Final Step: Excessive Reference Checks
After passing all assessments—including live coding and receiving positive feedback from three senior technical team members—the final request from HR raised red flags. I was asked to provide contact details for five previous employers dating back to 2017, including managers’ emails, LinkedIn profiles, and availability for verification calls. While reference checks are standard in many industries, this level of scrutiny for a backend technical lead role felt excessive—especially given their repeated emphasis on trust throughout the process.
Why I Stopped the Process
At this point, I decided to withdraw from the process myself. While I have no problem spending my own time in a way that might seem wasteful, I do not believe I have the right to waste the time of former colleagues and managers by dragging them into an unnecessary, excessive verification process.
Takeaway
Despite the company’s ambitious product vision and a team of highly skilled engineers, the management approach felt distrustful and overly controlling. While “trust” was repeatedly emphasized as a core value, the process itself suggested otherwise, with signs of micromanagement and excessive verification steps. This experience left me questioning whether the company truly practices what it preaches.
