I applied through LinkedIn to cyber physical systems modeling and software engineering positions. I heard back from the internal recruiter within a week and had a virtual video screen with an engineer about 8 days or so after applying. The screen went well enough and covered various aspects of dynamical systems (spring mass system), programming (some questions about memory allocation, stack, heap in C), hardware/communication protocols (such as RS-232 serial protocol), and some other general engineering questions I have forgotten at this point. It went well enough, I kind of fumbled my way through the spring mass system, as it had been a while since I've considered things like that, but the other portions went well I thought, and I was actually really excited for the position after this virtual video screen.
I was invited to a virtual onsite that took place 12 days later. I was scheduled for video conferencing interviews from 11:30am-3:00pm with no breaks, which wasn't great. The interviews were 30 minutes each with either one or two people. I don't think everyone that was on the list showed up or there were changes. The discussions were relatively high-level, but there were not much organized questions from STR. I didn't think they were diving much into my background, and I felt I had to give repeated overviews of my background during each individual 30-minute session, which was a bit wasteful in terms of time and repetition. I felt things were going fine. I wouldn't say great just because STR wasn't really that organized in asking me detailed questions, and so things weren't flowing all that well, but the vibe seemed fine. I was also having some lag in the video calls which may have contributed to that flow. Certainly nothing that seemed like it wasn't a good fit technically, and there were spots of good conversation.
However, after two hours into the interview, the next person didn't show up. About 10-20 minutes into that 30-minute session of a no-show, I got a text from the internal recruiter saying STR had canceled the remaining three sessions of the interview. They didn't know why and said they'd follow up. I told the recruiter that I thought things we going fine, so I was confused. I sent the recruiter a follow-up email the next day to ask if they had details on what had happened, why the interview was canceled midstream, and that I was rather confused. I never heard back and 9 days later I got a cold, blanket email saying that it's not a match at this time. No details, no apology, no nothing, and this recruiter had been rather chatty and supportive when doing the initial recruiting screen and setting up the interviews.
This was unfortunately one of the worst interview experiences I have ever had, probably being the worst. It was not respectful of my time and gave me no insight or feedback into what was going on. Additionally, a few of the interviewers seemed to just want to brag about STR, one of them boldly claiming that they were certain I have never worked on projects that move as fast as theirs. While that's of course potentially and maybe even likely true, I don't know how they could make such a claim when they made no effort to understand the relevant projects I had worked on and their timelines, which were incredibly aggressive timelines. So, it was weird to make claims like that without even understanding my experience. Anyway, I was pretty depressed and bummed out after this interview, as the position was one I was really excited about and really wanting to dive into, and I have never had an interview canceled midstream like that. The fact that they ghosted me after cancelling an interview that, for any indication I saw, was going well enough is extremely unprofessional. Any reason I could possibly conjure up on why they canceled would be one that I don't see any reason why they wouldn't just tell me, so I remain rather confused. The fact that they canceled an interview on the spot and yet took 9 days to contact me to tell me no is additionally baffling. I had worked in the industry before and even had an active clearance at the time of interview.
It's unfortunate, because they seem to do some very interesting work there, and I remain interested in the domain. A few of the people I spoke to were pleasant and seemed like they'd be interesting to work with. Of course, everyone seemed quite smart. There was a lack of diversity. It was all white males with two males of Asian descent (guessing). Will I apply again in the future? Maybe, but I would put them on the spot a bit more to understand both the technical and cultural aspects of the position and teams, and I'd have to give it a lot of thought to reapply. I hope they see this feedback and take some actions to improve the experience and their process. This isn't rated as negative because they declined me in the end. It is rated negative because of the experience and process, which should have been more professionally handled.