I applied on a Job portal after going through the reviews of the company, and a position open matching my skillset. I was reached out by a recruiter initially and scheduled a technical interview with a Security manager. The interview was completely assessing my skill and depth in the area. I was then asked to talk to a Security Lead, in his team to place me in the right role of their organization. That was the first positive impression I had with the team. Their trials to help me get a right role is something unexpected and explained a lot about the culture of Procore. I was scheduled for the next technical interview, which was an amazing experience; deep dive into scenario based questions. Right after the second interview, the Manager whom I spoke earlier cared to get the update of my take on both the discussions, I wasn't their employee yet, but valued my views and interests of the role. He mentioned that the discussions were more of each of us interviewing the other, but not just a one sided assessment; which elevated the values I had towards Procore. Later I was called for an onsite interview that was scheduled for 2 hours 30 minutes, which went beyond my expectations. I was treated the best way possible, allowed to ease myself before the actual interview started. There were 4 rounds, each of 30 minutes, trying to learn my skill and expertise, check if my moral values meet that of Procore, allowing me to learn their organizational structure, existing scenarios and checking my approach of answering them. The entire process only raised the bars of my interest in the company, and the on-campus interview was beyond. The positive reviews and the employment satisfaction are all proven, with the experience I had.

I applied online for an opening at Procore, I was contacted a week later asking for my availability for a phone interview. The interview was straight forward with the usual questions about skills, education, previous work and salary. Talking to the recruiter and from what I had researched online Procore seemed like an awesome fit. Here is where the problems began, more than a week later I received an email asking for my availability for the 2nd interview. I replied and did not hear anything back for a week. After two follow up emails and a phone call there was no response. I had to track someone down on linked in and ask for help sorting the communication issue out. I finally received a response and it took sometime again to receive clarification with the next the step. This should have been a red flag but the biggest red flag was yet to come. The 2nd interview was a virtual meeting. From the get go, the interview was openly hostile towards me, there was the ambiance of frustration at having to talk to someone given off from the interviewer. Right away he was unprepared and had not even looked over my resume, he fiddled around with the system for about ten minutes trying to get my application on screen. Tech issues happen but for someone in the position of leadership not being prepared before hand is unacceptable. One of the first things out of his mouth was the company is going public very soon. I found this strange as usually that information is not given out to the public until all the checks and rechecks have happened. The next red flag given off was the interview denigrating my educational background. He kept repeating how education wasn't important granted real world experience is needed but to be openly hostile towards education was strange. This is a unicorn valued startup that has been around since 2003, its laughable that a mentality like this would be found here. The interviewer also gave off a hostility towards minorities which I found shocking for a tech company given that diversity has such a big push from silicon valley. As the interview progressed, the interviewer gave a list of things that needed to be done before going public. The most striking was the amount of work that needed to be done and how being there for half a year he hadn't built a team and was just now starting. The interview kept saying how he wanted to use open source programs to complete work required. To me this translated to there was a limited or no budget that had been allocated to perform work. Open source is great for many of things but when you leave your security to software designed on an open source methodology this creates a security nightmare. This also translates to wanting a champagne taste for the work expected with a bargain beer budget. Trouble will come of this from a security standpoint. The next flag was how many times the interviewer mentioned "I had done" he kept repeating how much he had done at this company or that company. He never once mentioned working as a team to accomplish goals. The whole description was a recollection of his work, he only once mentioned working with a semi large team and how he only knew two of his subordinates from there. This struck me as more of taskmaster than a leader, this interviewer was someone that would gladly take credit for the work and leave the team hanging. He did not seem vested in the previous teams or this current one, I was left to wonder if he only had his eyes on his golden handcuff or parachute rather than the job at hand. He struck me as someone that would gladly toss anyone under the bus to accomplish his goals. Towards the end of the interview, the final nail in the coffin was hammered home. This was the final red flag, being subtly hostile was over. My previous work experience is with a major cyber security company as senior engineer that has their name everywhere. The interview flatly said I was not qualified for my position/salary with them, that I was an over glorified QA tester worth no more than 50k, and his engineers make 80K. This struck me like a bolt of lightning and the final flag made sense. He is experience and background is one from the public sector of the government as a paper pusher. Given everything that happened in this interview I found it hard to digest that a unicorn startup would hire such a poor fit. I fear for the person that fills this position and their mental health. I would steer clear of this company until they fix the leadership problems.