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I had an encounter with a rude interviewer when I was slightly younger. (Nothing egregious, your run-of-the-mill overconfident person who wrote their own algorithms interview question and scoffed at any answer that wasn't their handcrafted one, even if it had the same time and space complexity.)

Directly after that interview, I had an informal lunch with another engineer at the company, with more interviews scheduled afterward. I mulled it over during lunch, and instead of continuing the on-site interview, I thanked my lunch companion and told them that after my experience with the previous interviewer, I was no longer interested in entertaining the prospect of employment at the company.

The lunch companion seemed mildly surprised, and apologized for the previous interviewer. I went home and had 3 hours back to myself that day I hadn't planned to have.

To this day, it is one of the most cathartic experiences I've had in my career. Realizing that I had the power to walk away and exercising it, after years of having deference toward interviewer and companies drilled into my head, felt empowering.

Sometimes I think everyone should do this once, even if they're pretty neutral about the company, just to feel more comfortable standing on equal terms with a potential employer.

Now (not that I'm particularly experienced) I advise people receiving offers to ask their potential employers if they can hang out with the team for lunch, or for a day or more. I think a lot of people can put on a smiling face for a 1-hour interview and might be a lot more irritable during a typical workday. The average workplace tenure (anecdotally) is ~2 years, it's worth doing an extra day of due diligence before signing up for an org. And of course, if they say you can't meet the team or get lunch, that's signal too (generally negative).

EDIT: I should mention, the company was small enough that I knew I'd have to work with the rude interviewer at least sporadically. Your mileage may very with large FAANG-type organizations where you'll never see your interviewer again.




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