Where do I even start with the mess that was this entire experience? Applied online, recruiter reached out 3 weeks later and asked for my availability to schedule a call. Provided some times spanning the next few days. After two business days of silence from the recruiter, I reached out the following Monday to check in and said I was still interested in the role — and I got an automated out of office reply. The recruiter included contact info for a colleague in their OOO reply in case candidates needed scheduling assistance, so I emailed the colleague, who said my recruiter was out for the ENTIRE week but that they could get my call scheduled with the recruiter for the following week. The day and time of my call with the recruiter finally comes, and the recruiter is significantly late in calling me. They apologized, but the call felt like a joke. The recruiter was doing something in the background (sounded almost like using a microwave or something), their connection wasn't great, and the sounds of a barking dog and screaming child came through clearly at times. The recruiter also seemed woefully unprepared: I was met with long pauses and "ummm" after every question while the recruiter tried to figure out what to ask me next, and the questions were all simplistic. Usually recruiters explain a little about the company at the start of the call and then dive into the expectations of the role. Not this time. The call just started with, "Tell me a little about yourself and what you're looking for in your next role." Beyond that, they didn't have much to ask me beyond salary expectations. What was supposed to be a half an hour call lasted 15 minutes. The next day I got an email that they'd decided to move forward with another candidate. It honestly felt like a relief because if working at LaunchDarkly is anything like the abysmal recruiting experience, I dodged a massive bullet. Red flags everywhere in this process. Advice to LaunchDarkly: recruiters are the very first impression a candidate gets of a company. You're not just interviewing us — we're interviewing you, too. Stop accepting unprofessionalism, a lack of preparedness, and mediocrity from the people responsible for bringing on new hires and being the first point of contact for your company. It's a sure-fire way to turn off highly qualified candidates.