The interview stages were typical, ranging from a recruiter screen to a technical round with presentations and exercises. However, just days before the scheduled final round (XFN, Problem Solving, "Bar Raiser," and Portfolio presentation), I received an automated "thanks for your interest, role filled" email. I legit thought it was sent in error. Since it was sent at the end of the week, I had to wait until Monday to hear back from someone. It really sucked because I spent my weekend preparing for the interviews. Unfortunately, the recruitment team relied on an automated system to cancel a final round interview instead of sending a personal email. It felt dismissive given the significant time investment required for these interviews. Could be a real simple fix. Send me a templated email from the recruiter's inbox, not your ATS.

The process, from initial interview to final interview rounds, was about a month, and it was pretty intensive. I had an HR call (30 min), then a portfolio presentation with one case study with the hiring manager (30 min), and then a final round of four interviews. These four interviews were a live design challenge (45 min), second portfolio presentation with two case studies (45 min), then an "XFN" interview (30 min), and a "Bar Raiser" interview (30 min). After each of these interview rounds, I typically heard back within 48 hours, which was appreciated. Ultimately, I feel the interviews were too short and rigid. I felt like I was being thoroughly interviewed and tested by Grow's employees, but I had very little to no opportunities to interview THEM. For a company that feels so antithetical to typical tech tomfoolery, the interview process felt sterile. I got thorough instructions for each one, but the explicitly stated times for how long my presentations/participation should take only left five minutes at the end for questions. The XFN interview, apparently a Meta tactic, and the Bar Raiser interview, apparently an Amazon tactic, being used in this process was interesting to me. Using these mega conglomerate interview structures doesn't make sense for the type of people Grow seems to want to hire. I felt kind of passed around and like I never got the chance to know what being a designer at Grow was about. If I felt that way after completing the final interviews, I think that's a problem. I know Grow has very carefully curated the type of people who work there and are therefore very stringent about who they hire, but I felt I was being held to very neurotypical, hyper-capitalist tech interview standards, which I wasn't expecting. If you make it past a final round and feel as in the dark as I did, I recommend asking for an extra conversational interview to learn important details you might be missing. Hopefully my review can help other interviewees, and I hope Grow allows for more organic conversational experiences to offset the intensity of the rest of their process.