DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON THESE PEOPLE! I had an initial 30 minute “informal” chat via webcam. Octopus made a very good impression and agreed that the next stage would be “no more than a 2-3 hour exercise - make a simple app”. They said in our first interview that no matter what I will have a chance with a follow up call to “discuss my design, coding choices and anything else to fully understand my thought process”. 5 days passed and I received the requirements. The test requirements were VERY basic but to the point - “make this picture into a real app” and make a couple of tests. That’s it. I spent 5 days working on this prototype app. FIVE DAYS! There is no way this was a couple of hours work. I really gave it my all as I really wanted to impress them (I have over 10 years experience). I made them a few extra features that were never mentioned such as additional menu options and so on. The app looked identical to the picture with buttons that worked. I submitted my app and code around a week later after receiving it. Another week passed until I received a badly worded email, without paragraphs and spell checking saying “we don’t want to progress with you”. This came as a total shock as I never even got a chance to discuss anything technical with them, despite being told in my first interview I could discuss my code to them in another round. Five days wasted. The feedback was bizarre such as: “the extra features you made do not do this” - the test said turn the picture into an app. Weird being told my extra freebies are not good enough. Very negative. “you didn’t do it the way we do; therefor we assume you don’t know how to do it” - very very strange negative comment. I had to use an exact library Octopus used otherwise I’m deemed wrong. Very weird. “no evidence making it work for bigger screens” - no such requirement was given! I’m being judged and assessed on points that aren’t even mentioned in their test. A bit like “make an impressive cake…actually I prefer chocolate inside but you made it using cream. You fail”. I made you “the cake” over multiple days…you’re failing me on ridiculous terms. I am somewhat dumbfounded by their rejection and refusal to politely follow up with a conversation which was mentioned a few times in our first meeting. I spent 5 days of my own time for them (a couple of days working into the evening) just to have a secondary chat with them. Their response was insulting, rude and made me angry to be honest. There were no further opportunities to speak to them; i’m just dismissed with negative points to make me go away. The thing that hurts the most is that I gave up a lot of my own time trying to go above and beyond just so I could speak to them again (I assumed at the time they’d keep their word and no matter good or bad I can discuss what I’ve made with them)…they couldn’t even be bothered to remain true to their own word or even have a polite conversation with me for 30 minutes. If they did they’d of learnt my reasons for doing parts in certain ways and they could have questioned further to understand if I knew certain topics in greater detail. I was being judged on things they never asked for (I had a single picture to work with…nothing else). I believe most people don’t even bother submitting anything on tasks like this which I can now understand why…why do all that work for someone to reject you with a paragraph. Their list of why they won’t progress was shameful and rude…their quote: ”we will just assume you don’t know this”….ASSUME…why not ask me? If it was that important why not explicitly add it as a requirement in the test and let me explain in more detail…? I was so angry about this whole thing I showed another senior developer their comments such as “code not formatted properly” and he was open mouthed at their response. “Wow…that’s just plain rude, wrong and unprofessional” was his response. I get the feeling that unless your face fits and wants to be one of the many young cheap grad types living the company values 24/7 you aren’t going very far (I’m not even that old!). I could be wrong but it’s the feeling I get. It’s got a cult vibe to the place. Think twice before giving any significant time to Octopus Energy so you don’t end up in the scenario I did. Plenty of other firms are willing to talk with you directly instead of sending out rejection emails of assumptions and incorrect statements.