Flexport posts a lot of "Flexport is hiring" ads on HN. Here are my anecdotal experiences.
I was contacted by a very sharp recruiter from within the company a year ago. She said they weren't actually looking for backend developers (senior or not). Why she contacted me given my senior backend developer resume is beyond me. I told her I had a previous lengthy, and ultimately confusing and unpleasant experience with Flexport hiring. She had no information about the interview process I had been through a year prior, and in fact she could not find any record of the process. Her explanation was that they had a lot of turnover in HR, and they had no records. That's very strange for a company that seems built to manage information and logistics (hiring/onboarding is human logistics).
That original interview experience was... interesting. I went through the usual HR type introductory interviews, and then I went through several rounds of coding interviews. Finally, I had a chat with the older gentleman who was in charge of all of their IT. From the very first moment, he seemed utterly disinterested in the call. He would not look into the camera - never made eye contact... asked questions as if reading from index cards, but registered no recognition of any responses. To me it was obvious that he either did not like me (from before we said hello) or was already determined not to hire me. That's fine, but I could have done without the awkard call. Then, two weeks later, they told me "No thanks" with no information as to why.
They were solving several problems related to shipping, one of which was managing customs. These must be complex problems. But the demos that I saw, at least 2 years ago, were very limited. And when I spoke to the recruiter a year ago, she told me that much of their activities were performed by humans instead of automated systems.
Since I'm an outsider, my perspective could be inaccurate or imagined. But to me it seems like another scenario of gathering funding but not actually having a solution. Perhaps it's a mere exposure scenario, but it seems they advertise jobs on the front page of HN more than other companies. Why do that on HN if they aren't looking for devs or if they are operating with 95% non technical staff? (this was the number provided to me by the internal recruiter)
That original interview experience was... interesting. I went through the usual HR type introductory interviews, and then I went through several rounds of coding interviews. Finally, I had a chat with the older gentleman who was in charge of all of their IT. From the very first moment, he seemed utterly disinterested in the call. He would not look into the camera - never made eye contact... asked questions as if reading from index cards, but registered no recognition of any responses. To me it was obvious that he either did not like me (from before we said hello) or was already determined not to hire me. That's fine, but I could have done without the awkard call. Then, two weeks later, they told me "No thanks" with no information as to why.
They were solving several problems related to shipping, one of which was managing customs. These must be complex problems. But the demos that I saw, at least 2 years ago, were very limited. And when I spoke to the recruiter a year ago, she told me that much of their activities were performed by humans instead of automated systems.
Since I'm an outsider, my perspective could be inaccurate or imagined. But to me it seems like another scenario of gathering funding but not actually having a solution. Perhaps it's a mere exposure scenario, but it seems they advertise jobs on the front page of HN more than other companies. Why do that on HN if they aren't looking for devs or if they are operating with 95% non technical staff? (this was the number provided to me by the internal recruiter)