Comment by supriyo-biswas

I had a really weird power-trip interview once, and it was the CEO who was joined by a contractor who was ostensibly the technical lead for the project. There was nobody in engineering who worked full-time on the job, everybody was contracted. I was also going in as a contractor so I was aware that the interview would be a bit lighter on process as a result.

The questioning very quickly veered away from technical stuff and into stuff like, "where do you stand spiritually?" and other questions probing into whatever bizarre cosmic insights I could pull out of my ass at the time. He was the really intense kind of boss who wants to make sure you know of it with the hard back/shoulder slaps and micromanagement, and I could see his office from the boardroom which basically had an array of monitors all wired up to CCTV so he could watch (and hear) people from the comfort of his desk.

If any of that wasn't a red flag, getting hired literally 5 minutes after leaving the office was probably the biggest. I lasted about 6 months and even trying to leave was an ordeal.

> Having said that, talking to a relative, I found out that this style of "interviewing" is often done when they already have someone for the position, but need to show (for compliance reasons, or otherwise) that they tried finding candidates, and only their preferred one qualified.

Or they only want candidates from a specific country to apply which is seemingly the case. I've heard from very talented and capable developers that they're getting auto-rejected once the interview reaches someone from a very specific country, no matter how good they did prior. I've also been personally told by people I know wouldn't BS me, that had my name sounded like I was from a particular country HR would have contacted me for an interview, but because I'm none of the countries some companies seem to only hire from, I get ignored. There's a problem with tech hiring and nobody wants to talk about it because most people are unaware.

> I chalked it up to a power trip and the indignant behavior that comes along with it, as it is especially embedded in the culture of the country that I'm based out of.

That's a very globally-conscious way to refer to the USA!

> I chalked it up to a power trip and the indignant behavior that comes along with it, as it is especially embedded in the culture of the country that I'm based out of.

You previously said:

"One of the things people in the US like to do is to take some thing that's being negatively talked about and spin that into a thing that only people in the US do"

Well, it sure sounds like a thing people from your European country like to do as well.