The interview process at Tabs was excessively lengthy and ultimately disrespectful, leaving me frustrated and annoyed. It started with two 30-minute technical screens over Zoom and CoderPad, which were FAANG-level LeetCode questions—one focused on linked lists and the other on stacks. These were challenging but fair enough for an initial filter.
Then came the onsite, scheduled from 11am to 3pm, which felt more like a full workday than an interview. It kicked off with joining their weekly engineering team sprint planning meeting (no invite sent; I had to ask for CTO Deepak to get in). This was awkward as an outsider, and it was eye-opening to see the CTO deeply involved in minutiae, which seemed unusual for a leadership role.
After a short break, there was a 1-hour coding interview on file systems with Senior Engineer, followed by a 1-hour system design interview using a code competition platform with Founding Engineer. Then a 30-minute cross-functional discussion with Senior Product Manager, and finally a wrap-up with Deepak—except the CTO was supposed to be part of the last call but bailed last-minute citing a "bug emergency."
Two days later, the recruiter informed me they weren't moving forward, with zero feedback provided. No explanation, no insights into what went wrong—nothing. This after investing hours into their process, including observing their internal meetings.
On top of that, the company mandates 4 days in-office and the team seems to operate on a 9am-9pm schedule, which screams toxic work culture. If this is how they treat candidates, I can only imagine the employee experience. Save your time and energy—there are better places out there with more respectful hiring practices.