Applied for an iOS Engineer role and immediately received an invite to a coding assessment - no human interaction, just a link. The test itself was uncomfortable - you had to have your screen recorded and camera on for the entire duration with no other person on the call. Just you, being recorded, alone. That in itself felt odd.
I passed and moved on to a call with an Engineering Manager which went well. However, during that call I found out that because Speechify has no legal entity in the UK, the role wouldn't be standard employment. It would be a contractor arrangement - meaning no benefits, no pension, you handle your own tax returns and NI contributions, and only 14 days holiday. No notice period either. This was never mentioned in the job listing.
The second coding interview had a person on the call this time, which I thought would be better. It wasn't. The interviewer was very robotic, clearly reading from a script, and when the screen recording and camera monitoring started, they turned their own camera off. Any questions I asked were answered generically with no real engagement. It felt more like being processed than interviewed.
I withdrew my application after this. Primarily because the contractor arrangement made the role financially unviable - but honestly, the whole experience felt uncomfortable throughout. The lack of transparency about employment status upfront was the biggest issue. That's something candidates deserve to know before investing time in a lengthy interview process.