I was approached by a recruiter. He sent me the job posting and scheduled interview.
1. The first interview was an introductory interview. It was 1.5 hours and the interviewer mentioned the company, the products, and technical challenges. I also mentioned about myself and my experiences and asked questions about the company.
2. The second step was a take-home challenge. It was a basic web service. I completed the challenge in 3 days, it took 11 days for them to review it.
3. The third step was the code review interview with 2 senior developers. It took about 1.5 hours. I explained my code, they asked questions and pointed out the mistakes. They asked many questions about concurrency, scaling. It was a tough but fun interview.
4. After my recruiter informed me with positive feedback about the code review interview. He said the next step is the HR test but it is just formality, they are preparing the contract. HR test consists of two parts, one is a personality test and the other is cognitive ability test where you choose the next shape fits according to the logic. It takes 1 hour and I did it at home. And later on, I had a phone interview with HR on the phone. We discussed the results of the test and also I was asked many behavioral questions starting with tell me a time. It took more than 1 hour.
Later on, I was rejected based on the HR test. They said, "culture here might not be best for you". I asked a more detailed explanation so as to improve through my recruiter but couldn't receive any response.
Overall, It took 1.5 months from start to finish. Actually, they could save much time for me and for their interviewers if they put the HR testing (just 1-hour test can be done at home) as the first interview. I spent so much time doing the take-home challenge, waiting for their review, scheduling interviews and after all time I received a rejection with just a sentence. They have all my personality report that could give more detailed feedback. But, the worst thing, the recruiter wrote to me several times that this HR test is just formality, they are preparing contracts, which made me more disappointed with the decision. They should be more careful with the recruiters they work since it is not acceptable to say that kind of thing to a candidate before the process completed. It is important to put expectations in a realistic level.