I was first approached by Bet365 via a member of their HR team last month. An initial interview was set up, but cancelled upon five minutes before said-interview due to an emergent case of tonsilitus. The interview was rearranged, and was very much focused on my character. When the next interview came around, I was supposed to speak to the database team lead for the Manchester Branch of Bet365 via Zoom. He did not show up to the interview. I was left for an hour, and all emails were unseen or ignored to inform them of such. Eventually, I was given a short interview (where-in I was asked no questions about myself, and told what Bet365 does as a company for thirty minutes, before being given a case-study). After completing the case study, Bet365 paid for me to visit their head office in Manchester - spending the night in a four star hotel and visiting the next morning. When I arrived in the Zenith Building, I had to find the Bet365 office myself. Nobody was sent to guide me to the office, and eventually had to an ask someone on a smoke break to let me in - five minutes before the interview. The Bet365 Zenith offices are noisy and boisterous, reminiscent of a frathouse where one is expected to also write code. The team lead stumbled into me and greeted me, leading me to a meeting room where he would connect with a colleague on Zoom. The team lead, in my brief conversations, was extremely cold and pragmatic - focused soley on the quality of the code that I had brought in. This contrasted with the very at-ease dress code of the office, with the team lead wearing a t-shirt of a metal band - showing off two gaudy bicep tattoos of what looked to be a monster on one arm, and the haunted face of a woman pained in agony on the other. The other colleague arrived thirty minutes late to the interview via Zoom, and asked not a single question. The programming assessment went well for a Junior position - with the only feedback partaining to the long-term application of the Database, problems that will no doubt be apparent in the work of a Junior. I was not asked any questions about my work experience, my degree, my trip - or even extended an apology for the treatment of which they were well aware. Bet365 is clearly looking for Unicorn programmers, and lingers an environment that has been cultivated by incapable hands to be as toxicly selective and mismanaged as possible.

In the first-round interview, the hiring manager inquired about my background, skills, and personal projects. I received a clear description of the position's pay and benefits as well as company culture and job expectations. The interviewer was very personable and made the position appealing. The second round was a technical assessment evaluating my knowledge throughout the tech stack. Knowledge of data structures and algorithms was assessed. The third round was with a senior software engineer who asked questions similar to the first two rounds. He then asked about my thought process in my technical assessment and further evaluated my technical understandings. This interview was professional, yet congenial.