Call with recruiter to feel out my interest and (important) *ask for my desired salary*. Recruiter said that he checked with the hiring director about the desired salary level and said they could meet my salary expectation. Then a 30 minute video call with the hiring manager. Basic resume questions and tech stack/familiarity questions were asked. Hiring manager was nice, personable, and knowledgeable. Next step was a round of 3 in-person interviews at their office. Everything went well, the technical team seemed excited to talk to me and was definitely giving off vibes that they would love to have me on the team and I felt the same. However, the [individual I can’t name because Glassdoor doesn’t allow it] was giving off heavy 'micromanager' vibes hidden under the guise of supposedly caring.
Recruiter circled back with me, told me that everyone really loved my communication and technical skills and would love to have me on the team. Offer was made by the recruiter...$10k under what I said was my minimum, and instead offered me a one-time $10k sign-on bonus... All of this considering that they had 0 flexibility on their 4 days a week in office requirement for a job that really had no good reason to be in an office other than so [individual I can’t name because Glassdoor doesn’t allow it] could micromanage everyone.
1/2 a work day wasted doing an in-person interview for silly tricks to low-ball a good candidate. Overall bad impression of management. I feel pity for the good engineers who work there and have to deal with this management team's tricks.