The Interview Answer That Cost Me $314K+ Job
Four months back, I was contacted by a gaming software company for a senior developer position. The role was generic: It embraced all aspects of development: Back end, Mobile, and Cloud.
The recruiter summed up the package:
- €150k annual salary (The salary part is €100k. However, in the EU, the employer takes care of medical insurance too. This one promised it for my whole family. Then there are 1-month long holidays, coupled with holiday bonuses)
- €170k stock options spanning 4 years
If I apply those figures over 4 years and estimate the stock to reach even 3x its current value, the total comes to around €1.1M. Note that 3x is most conservative because it touched 1.5x just within the last 4 months of the COVID-struck world economy.
Divided by 4, this comes to about €277K ($314K).
I am not bound by an NDA, but I am not revealing the company name here. This is because I hate stereotyping companies based on interview questions. Besides being harmful, it is nonsensical. No company repeats its interview questions quite often.
The important thing is to understand the pattern by which they go.
With those disclaimers, let us dissect what really ruined one of the most lucrative job opportunities I…
