I was allotted 30 minutes to draw an architectural diagram and 30 minutes to do a coding exercise. Pre interview I was pointed to a section of their website that gave strong guidance on how to approach both. During the architectural diagram section, I explained my train of thought while adhering to the c4model of diagramming (their pre-interview recommendation), they kept asking me to skip/ignore parts of the c4model in the interest of time.. so I needn't have taken the C4 model approach they recommended, and could have just drawn a load of boxes and lines in PowerPoint.. odd. Next, the coding exercise included far too loose a brief and had ambiguities in it. They would have done much better to use an off the shelf kata like String Calculator, Roman Numerals etc or something very similar. This would have resulted in a lot less time discussing ambiguities. Obviously discussion and requirement clarification skills is also being tested, but when we only had 30 minutes it was hard to spend so long getting clarification and still write relevant code. The brief they provided just was not sufficiently well designed and resulted in a lot of confusion while tackling it. In any case, both sections were too short and therefore rushed and can't allow for candidates to get comfortable, let alone hit their stride and show their capabilities. Just as unusual was one of the interviewers seemed to be constantly distracted, taking to someone else, making faces, laughing. It was very unprofessional and showed a complete lack of respect. I would never dream of interviewing a candidate unless I could give them my full attention and be professional throughout. Having been a hiring manager for years, I would recommend they redesign this process as the current one doesn't seem fit for purpose. On the upside, one of the interviewers was extremely pleasant and professional. A credit to the organisation.

I was approached by Made Tech's internal talent team on LinkedIn. After a chat about my experience and career ambitions, I told them that I wanted to apply for the Principal Technologist role on offer as this was where my skills lay. However, due to limited number of positions I was asked to apply for the Lead Software Engineer role instead (albeit reluctantly). I thought I would give them the benefit of the doubt given that internal progression was meant to be pretty good. After chatting with the talent manager, I had an initial 30 minute call organised with one of the Lead Software Engineers at Made Tech. There was a mixture of questions around line management experience, agile processes, TDD approaches and willingness to learn new languages and frameworks. Unfortunately I didn't cut the mustard on the basis that a single comment I made during the interview around TDD approach was misconstrued and given no opportunity to clarify what I was trying to get across. I was told by the talent manager that on the basis I had received this piece of bad feedback, Made Tech would not consider moving to the next stage. I'm slightly disappointed that something was taken the wrong way during the interview.