Summary:
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A overly long stressful interrogation for 3.5 hours.
Like others I believe I dodged a bullet. It’s all one way; they completely disregard that interviews are a two way process - you are simply there to answer complex questions and scenarios for over 3 hours to prove you are worthy of working for them.
It very much felt that they are looking for reasons why NOT to hire you - what mistakes you made and struggled with or conflicted with “the Mettle way of doing things”. Nothing about what you bring to the table, how eager you are to get involved and grow in the company.
Like others have stated from their experiences, it seems Mettle are extremely rigid and have this self belief they are one of the top tech firms everyone is eager to work for. The truth is they are a small start-up company (a NatWest experiment really) that simply manages a bank account for sole-trader companies. It’s a bank account with a website and mobile app that lets you do some extra business things such as generating invoices. They are not Google, Apple, etc - yet the hiring process would make you believe otherwise.
I came away feeling (even after the second interview) stressed and not wanting to work for them simply due to strong control over the whole interrogation process. You are just another candidate that is yet to prove your capabilities for their awesomeness.
The interview process:
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I was contacted by a talent recruiter at Natwest who put me forward to the job.
Interview 1.
The HR person and I had a 30 minute chat, which involved asking questions about my recent work experience, skills and they explained a basic overview of the role they are looking to fill. Not so much an interview - more of a filter so those that aren’t qualified can not continue. I was told the next step is a conversation for the engineers to know my background and for me to know more about the role.
Interview 2.
It turns out this was an intense technical questioning exercise for an hour. I answered their questions which they seemed satisfied with. No real explanation of what I am trying to sign up for job wise or how they work - Mettle certainly got what they wanted and I’m still none the wiser on anything job wise. On to the next round it seems.
Interview 3.
The coding challenge. Like most I really dislike this type of interview - it’s not a fair representation of the job itself and it creates huge anxiety and stress. I felt like a gladiator knowing i have to fight whatever is about to come through the doors. No one should be watching you whilst coding in real time. It takes deep thought, time and focus - all which are disregarded in this type of interview. Alas…here we are and let’s see what comes through the gates into the fighting pit.
It was a simple enough task - it’s not the same challenge as others so no way to prepare for it. I was asked to make a file work but they put some gotchas in existing code such as using the wrong type of brackets, making data come back in an inconvenient way so it needs to be manipulated before properly used in another function. Throughout I’m getting one of the engineers saying over and over “tell me your thought process, why you are doing this, what are the alternatives”…not helpful at all and extremely annoying and stressful.
I stopped at one point as I couldn’t remember a method name to alter some data and so they provided a link in the zoom chat, which turned out to be wrong. Due to stress i copied it into my solution and it threw me off - whilst the same engineer was repeating over and over “what does object mean?! Does that work? Will that work…just look at the object, what does that do!!!”. It’s just a real shame and stressful situation - I wouldn’t want to work with someone like that. I managed to get a working solution in the end just in the nick of time.
Interview 4.
Another interrogation but Whiteboarding exercise for an hour. Drawing out a full front to back high level solution and how communications would work between each part and why. I thought I did really well but the same engineer from before like to play devils advocate and kept saying “but what if…” to somehow prove he has to be the smartest in the room all the time. I already made my mind up by this point. I did get 3 minutes to ask questions at the end. No idea how they work still, what team this is for, etc.
Interview 5.
General “tell me a time when” style interview. Nothing difficult. 5 minutes at the end to ask any questions.
How can I talk to 6 different people for 3.5 hours and still barely know anything about the job…??!
Later in the day I got a rejected email saying there are stronger candidates, thank you for my time.
Funny thing is…after interview 3 i received a job offer from a much larger tech firm people would want to work for. Much nicer people and two way process. At Mettle? No chance! I’m simply not worthy or capable it seems. Oh well…
