I was contacted by an external recruiter regarding this position. He mentioned that it is primarily a C++ role, but that they would consider my Java background as equal. The tech stack does have some Java requirements, but also there is a proprietary company query language that is widely used and that a lot of the time, you're working specifically with this proprietary language. So be warned about that, I'm not sure exactly how much you'll have to consider this but it's never good to work too much with skills that cannot translate well to other companies. I had a phone screen where I was considered for all kinds of positions, some very tech-support like, some more customer facing. Then I was asked some tech questions (Describe a HashTable, etc) and I killed them all, so he read the job description for this role. I was invited in for an interview the following week. The office is quite nice (what I saw of it) and FiDi is a pretty nice area in general. Beautiful view. There was no tour but everyone was friendly. I filled out some general questions and a self evaluation, and then took a written test. The test was pretty straight forward, some general programming questions, one question which was a bit more logic based, a few c++ specific questions (pointers and such) and then I was asked to hand write some code (mostly IO stuff, tiny bit of arithmetic). Then there was some SQL questions, relatively easy stuff. After that, we went over my test. Everything was okay, I made a silly mistake on one but they asked me to redo it and I found the issue immediately. They mentioned my SQL wasn't great but they said it was no big deal, they understood it was prior experience for me and that I could be brought up to speed quickly. Then I was asked to do some whiteboarding. Simple stuff, really. FizzBuzz (variation) to start, with the one caveat being that it must compile: a really dumb requirement for a whiteboard test. They stopped me for missing a semi colon here and whatnot. Not joking. I don't think they were really holding it too much against me, but they required it. After that they had me find a value in a sorted array (binary search) and evaluating the time complexity of that search (log(n)). Killed all these questions. The gentleman capped his marker, smiled at me, and said "Well I have no more questions!". They then had me ask them questions. I met two other individuals who asked me questions and I asked them questions. They didn't give me much technical other than a logic question (The ol' you have 9 balls, 1 balance scale, 8 weigh equally 1 weighs heavier, find the heavier in the minimum separations, which is 2). Actually flubbed this one a bit, but they didn't care. It's an annoying question if you haven't seen it before. I solved this in 3 steps and they actually complimented my algorithmic approach to it. We left off positively. They used a lot of "When you work here" and wording to make me think it was all good. The following day (friday) I was informed that an offer is likely coming. On Saturday I was asked for more personal information as paperwork was being moved around for the offer. On Tuesday I was informed that they interviewed an individual on Monday and went with them instead. They then shifted tone completely and said I was more suited for this customer facing role due to my excellent communication skills. Not that it pays better or involves coding at all (scripting, really). Basically they felt bad about moving paperwork and making me think it was all but done by Saturday, and offered me something else to try and smooth it over and fill another role while they were at it. Except it was then mentioned to me that maybe my tech skills weren't up to their team standards, and that's why I'm better off in an environment with less coding. How exactly is FizzBuzz supposed to tell you if I'm up to standard? Ask a better question. Anyway, that's why they offered me a different position, I think. There's no way I wasn't qualified based on their tests. They made their decision to go with someone who is better with C++ I'm sure, since I'm mostly Java (and gave them a lot of Java answers) or someone who is a bit better with SQL. But I nailed the C++ questions on the test, answered all the others fine, and only stumbled a bit on SQL, which they specifically told me is "not a big deal". Hell, they apparently have their own query language anyway, so don't judge me for needing a quick recap on the topic when I'm going to need it to learn your proprietary stuff too. One of the easiest interviews I've ever had. They should have been more honest with me. If they said "This other candidate is just as good as you but s/he has more c++ knowledge so it's a safer choice" I would have nodded in agreement. But don't try and make me think I didn't test well, because I killed that poor excuse for a tech-test.