I'm only writing this review to unlock other company salaries but this is one of those interviews that’s a story to tell and forever rubbed off on me in a negative way. At the time, I had 1 year of UX design experience, trying to escape my micromanaged company and I applied because the LinkedIn posting was up for more than a year, promoted too, which should've been a red flag that it was never filled.
My interview took place on-site at the Irvine location right before the pandemic so maybe things have changed though I doubt it since old large companies don’t budge well to change and designers.
For a non-Silicon Valley company, the expectations and the process weren't difficult but extremely tedious and time-consuming. The team that interviewed me was friendly throughout the whole way which I appreciated. Another red flag is that they’d have side jokes poking at how chaotic their leadership is and how aggravating communication can be, hoping somehow I could fix that. I’d give them the credit that they really tried to mature their design internally.
Though I can't remember the exact number of steps in regards to phone screenings, interviews (one was remote!), portfolio reviews, presentations, and 1:1s I had to go through but I did it all! Towards the end, I was even given an entire onboarding process of what I'd be getting into exactly - flowcharts and everything of who'd I'd work with - it felt like they hired me on the spot and it was my first day so of course, I felt misled. In retrospect, I feel like the team read every possible design interview process Medium article and checked each idea to put it all together into a massive process.
The shocker was that I even made it to the cultural fit lunch where usually that equals receiving an offer - I didn't. I was told they were looking for someone more senior when the application itself stated 1+ years experience - also, how could you put me and your team through the entire end-to-end interview process when if you needed someone more senior, you could've stopped me in the beginning? Definitely going to write some Twitter thread on this for years to come, geez!
I took PTO and lots of time to focus on this interview, but the happy ending was that I was recruited to an even better company right after. Also looks like half the people who interviewed me don't even work there anymore!
PS I actually still check up on the people who interviewed me because that's how traumatizing (for lack of a better word) the process was for a junior level me at the time.