Reached out to recruiter and manager via LI, scheduled first round. First round screening was standard questions, I appreciated Slack's recruiters trying to connect from a candidate perspective, allowed me to feel like I could potentially be a culture fit instead of them just asking questions to check off boxes. Easily built rapport/similar vibes. Second round was with the hiring manager and everything went great. He came from similar big tech background, asked all good questions and I came in really prepared. He said he really enjoyed interviewing me and I was pretty sure I advanced to the panel round. The position was in New York and kind of remote, they do prefer you to be in similar region, which was not going to be a problem for me. Slack's AE positions being remote is definitely beneficial. However, when the panel interview showed up, the hiring manager and another manager was on. This other manager did not have his video on, and after a minute or so we figured out that he was actually commuting in the New York subway. This kind of ticked me off because I thought this was pretty disrespectful, even though the hiring manager was on video. The interview went fine but that initial vibe was already off, and at the end of the interview the hiring did not allow me to ask any questions and told me good luck with my interviews. Instinctively I knew something was off, and eventually I came to a conclusion that they had already gone with someone else before my interview, even though I had killed my second round with him just a week ago. I don't mind rejection and understand a company going with another candidate, but I would really appreciate if a) the panel interview would include a video with the manager and b) if Slack had already chosen someone else, I would 100% just prefer to have the recruiter let me know, so I don't have to spend my mental energy to prepare and go through a panel with no path through. It's a waste of my time, just let me go and we can go separate ways, I get if you chose someone else already. That was my only negative experience of the process, but other than that everything including the recruiter made this process really positive. I have no hard feelings, wish there was more transparency that's all.
