It starts with a 30-minute interview with a recruiter.
The second stage is a 1 hour of live coding with two problems dealing with data structures and algorithms.
Then there is a series of four interviews session (which you can spread over a couple of days): live coding similar to the previous round, 1 hour of live React coding, a system design question and a an interview about your past experience and your values. If you get through, you have a team match: you meet someone from the team you will be working in.
The interviewers were friendly and the recruitment team were also helpful and dedicated.
The tests and puzzles were not difficult in themselves. I found the system design session more difficult, but I had never done that before.
I found the process unnecessarily long (23rd May -> 09th July). I am not even arguing about the number of stages, but rather the fact that you have to wait a long time between the different sessions and their feedback. This makes things stressful for no reason as you don't really know what to expect.
After the first screening I told them that I had received an offer from another company (then a second one) and I wished to proceed as quickly as possible, but it took more than 10 days to get to the second stage. I was transparent with the three companies because I don't like to play with people's time and expectations.
It took yet another four working days (6 calendar days) to get a feedback, whereas Datadog told me it would take between one and two working days. It was very embarrassing for me because I had to ask the other two companies for yet another delay.
I finally got a positive response (Thursday) and had the team match the next day. The recruiter told me that at this stage I had a 99% chance of getting an offer. It all went well and the recruiter even gave me the feedback on Saturday morning that the offer would be finalised by Tuesday. I was relieved at last, with three offers to choose from.
On Monday, the other two companies asked for an update (again, I was transparent about the calendar and kept them updated). I told them the situation and that I would probably prefer Datadog. They wished me good luck and told me they could not wait any longer (they had other candidates who were waiting on their side).
The next day, instead of receiving a contract from Datadog, I received an email saying that the job had magically disappeared through a reorganisation and there were no alternative now, or in the future ("Thank you for your time, effort, and patience throughout the interview process. We genuinely enjoyed getting to know you and wish you the very best in your career.").
Ironically, they have 188 vacancies for software engineers on their careers page and Linkedin keeps pushing me job I should apply for as I am a "great match". The recruiter suggested a call, which I personally thought was pointless, but my wife urged me to ask for clarification. So I had the "apologies on behalf of Datadog", but still have lost three offers and two months ... and transparency remains one their core values :)
I like to put things into perspective and will probably get a job while many others are unfortunately struggling between war and hunger, but this remains the most shocking work experience I have ever had and comes from a company I have not even worked for.
PS: My criminal record is empty and I don't belong to any offensive online community