I applied for a Software Developer role at this company and advanced past the first round of interviews. After that stage, HR reached out to ask me about my permanent residency status. I clarified that I hold a valid Canadian work permit, which makes me legally eligible to work in Canada. This was disappointing because the job posting itself clearly stated: "Please note: The successful candidate must be willing to work remotely within Canada and either be a Canadian Citizen or hold a valid Canadian Permanent Residency or Work Permit." Despite meeting this stated requirement, I was later rejected solely because I do not hold permanent residency or citizenship. In Canada, employers are allowed to require applicants to already be legally entitled to work (citizenship, PR, or valid work permit). However, rejecting a candidate who does have a valid work permit, solely because they are not a PR or citizen, has been considered by Canadian human rights tribunals to be discriminatory and potentially a violation of human rights legislation. Companies should respect their own stated eligibility requirements and ensure their hiring practices align with Canadian human rights standards.

The interview process was extremely lengthy, but fair. The whole process consisted of 3 total interviews. The first was a short and simple programming exercise where I was asked to provide 3 very basic software solutions focusing on common Object Oriented Programming patterns. The allotted time was 30 minutes, but I doubt many people would need the full time as the problems were not challenging. The following 2 interviews were 2 hours each. The first of these longer interviews consisted of questions about my professional experiences (e.g., “Have you ever had a disagreement with someone at work and how did you resolve it?”) and a few technical questions (e.g., “What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface?”). The second of these longer interviews was going through my resume and asking relevant questions about my experiences at each job (e.g. “what were some of your likes and dislikes at Company XYZ?”) There was some overlap in the questions between these 2 interviews. All in all, the process took about 1 month. It sounds like they had a number of candidates to evaluate when I applied, so it took a while to hear back after the final interview. The long wait to hear back was a bit nerve wracking, but I think that was mainly because I had decided I really wanted to work with this company after getting to know some of the employees in the interviews. I'm very glad the lengthy interview process resulted in an offer. I think I would have felt much worse about it if I had spent all that time and not gotten an offer.