This was a multi-round interview process. I spoke with HR, one of the head engineers, the streaming engineers, the Wordpress engineers, and the marketing team. The head engineer had some questions and comments about the coding exercise I turned in. He was really nice and straight forward. The 3 streaming engineers made their interview productive and light-hearted. I really enjoyed their segment.
When it got to the three Wordpress engineers, the team I was applying for, they started grilling me on coding questions, which I expected and is normal for a job like this. They asked at least 15-20 coding questions related to PHP, Javascript, HTML, and CSS. They also had me white board. I didn't get all the questions right and they didn't seem pleased. I took the hit and understood why. However, before they left, one of the engineers said "the rest of the interview process should be easy" and laughed. It was a funny joke at the time because it was a pretty difficult segment for me. I was looking forward to the rest of the group panels.
After this I had a great segment with the marketing team. However, the HR lady came in after and told me they were cutting me short. I thought back on the engineer that said "the rest of the interview should be easy", making me think I would be able to finish all the panels. I talked this out with other professionals and concurred that this was extremely unprofessional. If the developers thought I was not fit for the role, they should have maturely told me during their segment instead of tricking me and wasting my time.
I waited a long time to write this but I finally decided to because I feel it was one of the worst interview experiences. I have had many interviews where I was treated with more respect and honesty. I give kudos to the rest of the team here because they were very respectful. However, the Wordpress team needs to work on their professionalism and maturity.