Lot of red flags in this process that I didn’t recognize at the time. During the recruiter phone screen I wasn’t given time at the end to ask questions and the recruiter had to dig for the salary when I inquired about it. Next step was a take-home challenge followed by a technical interview/code review with the hiring manager and a senior developer. A couple weeks later I had an additional interview with the hiring manager and a different developer, which under the circumstances made sense because the first one from the previous interview left the company so that shifted the process some. They were kind and comfortable to talk to, and questions were mostly geared toward weeding out people who may prefer to be slotted into a larger company versus the “many hats” of a small agency (which they were plenty transparent about). Another month later I took two different personality tests prior to moving on to an interview with the CEO, with whom I discussed the results of the tests and answered some fairly personal questions. In retrospect the tests were a bit much. The biggest bummer about applying here was that the process took two months and, despite being a finalist, all I got was a template rejection through Greenhouse or whatever software they use—stunningly impersonal for how much I put myself out there. In the end I did not feel like they respected my time as a candidate. In addition to the homework and evaluations, I felt like they wanted a lot more verbal convincing (of the “why us?” and “what makes you the right fit?” variety) than the average hiring team and lacked an awareness of how brutal the job market is for junior talent right now. But most importantly I think candidates who make it all the way through deserve a phone call with the opportunity for feedback (I did receive this from another company, yes even in 2022), or at the very least an actual personalized email with a reply-to address.