I applied for the position online and received an email from the recruiter inviting me to chat about the position. The call was a mini interview in and of itself and went well. A phone interview with the hiring manager followed. It was a great, informative discussion and I was invited to come in for a portfolio review/in-person interviews. The in-person experience was fun. The most surprising part of it was that the entire studio attended the portfolio review. It was a little intimidating at first, but the people were fun and friendly, which made the experience very positive. They saved time by having two to three people interview me at a time, which I appreciated. They didn't "grill" me, and were very good at answering my questions. They were passionate about user experience and their product. Lots of great energy and passion.

After telling me they wanted to move forward with an offer, I was asked how much I'm making currently so they can use that as a basis for their offer. This is an incredibly regressive way to approach salary negotiation, and how wage gaps persist, especially in underrepresented groups in tech (of which I belong to at least one). Recruiting dragging their feet for a couple weeks, then declined to meet the salary range I asked for because it was "just not possible" and made me a lowball offer that rested solely on my current salary. No thank you. Weeks after I declined their first offer, oh! All of a sudden we can meet the range you requested! How about that. If HTC's recruiting team had met my very reasonable requirements right off the bat, I would have happily taken the position when I was first offered it a month prior. Unfortunately for them, in the time between offer #1 and offer #2, I had received a job offer from another company that I ended up taking, due in part to the other company's willingness to negotiate swiftly and transparently with me.