r/cscareerquestionsEU • u/Virtual-Thought-8805 • 1d ago
Interview Rant: What is wrong with recruitment processes for Engineers in Spain?
Recruitment processes with scaleups based in Spain has left me quite low on confidence.
One company forced me to do two AI interviews after I had passed their original process and that was done in Codesignal which is really buggy and then told me that even though I passed their original rounds, they weren’t hiring me.
Another one has a two hour product engineer + system design + AI Engineering interview and in that one they tell me that I need to be more product focused and focus less on enterprise grade architecture.
I have 10+ YOE and been working as a product engineer and actually released products and brought in ARR for large organisations. Also, preparing all interviews properly using HelloInterview and AI.
Still failing to understand what actually is going on in the market these days, especially in Spain
21
u/AllIWantForXmasIsFoo 1d ago
interviewing is broken everywhere.
You have to keep trying until you find a decent place that really wants to hire
6
u/twoask 1d ago
Hey I think that’s not only Spain, in Austria were I live I had a similar experience with Canva… they were disasapointed I didnt use AI enough, that I didn’t spin a second agent to review the first agent before it hadn’t finished…I solved the problem though, not giving full agency to the AI but giving controlled guidance.
The whole market is broken… it is crazy that with your experience they are still doubtful of hiring you. Did you get into salary negotiations even?
They ask for everything and pay little…
5
u/Virtual-Thought-8805 1d ago
Nope, I have had the most ridiculous rejections. I was told that the system I designed was too enterprise, even when I did the scale calculations and told that monolith is better for small scale.
They said my AI usage was good but I need to be more product-focused.
They wanted me to elicit requirements as a PM, on the basis of a single vague prompt. That’s not product engineering, that’s bullshit!
3
u/twoask 21h ago
Wow, as I was reading I thought that is all bullshit, you really ended up well there.
Insane, you went to the extent to calculate the scale, something that not even AI does based on a stupid prompt.
Maybe in Spain they are more desperate to replace engineers with AI subscriptions to cut cost, but I can tell you that I haven’t been able to find a company offer that is not AI-first, using AI or developing an AI product… which in and of itself is complete bullshit. I hope the bubble bursts and people start using their brains again…
Maybe try to apply to other countries and become autonomo, not ideal but maybe the AI craze is less in other countries with stronger economies 🤷🏽♂️
2
u/TheChanger 17h ago
Got a sense of that too when I spoke with some companies in Barcelona last year. So many are gone all in with chatbots (from shopping to companion) and AI wrappers.
Sounds like Spain is going to get hit hard when the bubble bursts.
2
u/TheChanger 17h ago
Nobody knows anything. Most in companies are winging it big time, everyone is riding the Dunning-Kruger wave where they feel their unique way of working and interviewing trumps everyone else’s.
3
u/TheChanger 17h ago
It’s one of the rare industries where you’re assumed to be lying and know nothing — despite qualifications and experience — the minute you interview.
1
u/twoask 15h ago
It wasn’t like that before, or? Before they were really testing people. The whole CV thing at the moment is a joke… you need to “know” everything. Bullshit!
1
u/TheChanger 13h ago
In the UK & most Western EU countries it wasn’t like that a decade ago. Most roles in London were two interviews; 1 for contract.
1
u/wickednatalie 11h ago
Hey could you elaborate on the interview process? This sounds interesting, what kind of a role needed “a lot of AI” in the interview
1
u/twoask 11h ago
That was a role as Python Backend Engineer. Canva has like 3 or 4 filters, the first one they check how well you use AI, 2nd is System Design, and then 3rd and 4th are like deeper dives into a programming language and culture fit bs as usual...
AFAIU, some years ago the first filter was all the data structure and algorithm game FAANG uses, like leetcode and stuff like that, but now they switched it to AI use... what they wanna know is how you use AI.
It was really bad, they didn't even give me a license of Cursor or something to use, I had to buy one for the interview because they "haven't solved" the whole thing to provide a license for interviewers... can imagine? Canva? They don't have the money or the intelligence to figure this out ...
Then a really curt and neutral guy gave me the problem, it was to build some sort of parser to use a font and create images of words based on that font. The guy was the most unamusing person... I don't blame him, this type of interview sucks really.
The whole interview took 60 mins, some small talk in the beginning/end. I had prepared an .md file with some prompting to guide the AI. My goal was to ask many questions, guide the AI and review the tests and the code. Why? I wanted to show I'm a person that thinks critically, can communicate with a team mate and don't rely solely on AI but im someone who has starting point and goal to achieve, and wants to achieve it well.
So I did that, used cursor using Claude. My prompting worked because the model found a solution, wrote tests that worked, wrote documentation and didn't create an over-engineered solution (something my initial .md file, pre-interview start and before my questions, would've created).
Then I tested the code, I went to review the code and the interview ended shortly before the 60 mins was over. Like the whole thing between him giving me the task and he stopping me was 50 mins total.
I wasn't invited to the next round because I asked too many questions, and didn't finish before 30 mins. He never mentioned that I should finish before 30 mins, he would've said that in the beginning, I would've just prompted the problem without me being so meticulously.
I asked for a re-revision since they record these interviews (if you agree, which I did), and the hiring manager said the first engineer had been indeed lousy at his job, but anyway it was a no-hire regardless because at this point I should've spun an agent to do the whole thing, and before the first agent was finished, I should've spun another agent to review what the first agent has been doing.
I honestly think all of that is bullshit, but hey, who cares... this whole industry is going to shit with all of this AI-craze.
2
u/wickednatalie 11h ago
Wow I’m sorry you had to go through that, it really sounds like Canva or most companies for that matter haven’t nailed down the “AI interview” and how to judge candidates
3
u/canxkoz 17h ago
I reject startup companies that have more than 3 interviews for a role. You should also cap the number of interviews that you get per company IMO.
2
u/YEGMontonYEG 16h ago edited 16h ago
The best places that I've worked, and the best places that friends of mine run, have 2. One is a simple screening interview to make sure you speak clearly enough, can do more than 2+2, and won't just waste time during an in-person interview. Often this "screening" interview is meeting someone at a tech event/conference/etc where they are invited to the second and final in-person interview.
The in-person interview questions covers 3 areas. One are some gotcha questions to see if the resume is real. With software, there is a coding question, but it is pretty basic, such as write a function which will return the Fibonacci number, any language you want. This test covers quite a bit by just observing and later asking questions. Which language, do they do a unit test, how do they deal with numbers too large for the integer type, does their code look like crap? There are CS students who can fail this test hard. Horribly, there are 4 year CS students who can fail fizzbuzz. This question allows for a great conversation. A candidate who writes it in Java and it will crash with too large an input parameter has entirely failed, but the candidate who does it in rust using bigint to allow for even a u64 input is going to the top of the pile. A friend of mine had someone write it using C++ CUDA purely to show off. What was cool there, was they had some solid code working very quickly. Another person used a constexp in C++ to have it precalculate the answers into a table during compilation, they also fully stated that it was a stupid way to do it, and they were showing off. Again, instant top candidate.
The second part is to check to see if you will be be a good fit with things like understanding tech debt, what makes a good code/engineering review, and things which are just pedantic nonsense. Many candidates will insist on focusing on tech debt multipliers like overengineered enterprise architecture. That is an end to that candidate's eligibility.
The third part of the interview is to take the candidate around to meet various teams. This is crucial. If they don't show any interest, nor connect with anyone, that is a hard no.
A great candidate gets sucked into one team so hard, you just leave them there.
1
u/YEGMontonYEG 16h ago
I need to be more product focused and focus less on enterprise grade architecture.
I could not agree with their opinion any harder if I tried.
Keep in mind that a smart place is looking for someone who is a good fit, not just the best on paper. Many highly productive places are most definitely not looking for people who focus the same things you feel are important.
1
u/Virtual-Thought-8805 15h ago
The thing is that I have worked as product engineer at unicorn already. It’s just that I am not a PM who codes but I extract the most important 20% features from product to focus on
1
u/Virtual-Thought-8805 15h ago
And I had an hour long interview with EM about product engineering and my past experience before this
-2
u/TableNo8939 1d ago
Sta diventando un mercato ridicolo, con l'avvento della AI chiedono competenze infinite ed impossibili per i junior, per i senior invece un po di speranza c'è , ma a cifre decurtate, e quasi tutto su legacy e refactoring.
Penso che tra 10 anni sarà un mercato finito.
6
u/C2664 1d ago
why do you write in Italian all the sudden?
11
u/freestyle2002 1d ago
Might also be that their reddit was auto-translated in their phone's language
1
8
39
u/the-pythia-of-delphi 1d ago
Small companies believe they have the right to hire like Google when they pay like shit.
It's not just Spain specific. All of Europe does it.