Former Valve initiative CastAR shuts down

I interviewed there a while ago, it was one of the most surreal experiences ever:

First the HR lady refused to proceed unless I told her what my current salary was. I refused, as I always do. She said they cannot proceed if I do not, and I said that that is fine and I am happy to leave. She said no, we can go on. She then tried to get me to sign a very large NDA. I refused, as I always do. She said that without that they cannot demo their technology to me. I said OK, i do not need a demo, if, after interview, both the company and I feel like we match, we can do that then. Ok… she brought her boss, same story with him – salary, NDA, etc… Eventually he said we can proceed to interview.

Two guys walk into the room – #1: Asian, 50s, #2: White, 30s.

#2 did not say a single word the entire time at all.

#1 looked at my resume, and asked why I thought I was a fit. I said that they called me and spent weeks convincing me to come interview, so that is not a question for me. He asked if I had done any embedded work. I said yes, and a list of my cooler projects was on my resume and website. He looked and said: “this is all crap.” I asked “excuse me?” He said that none of my projects were interesting or useful. I pointed out that my world’s smallest JVM has actually been licensed by a number of companies, indicating that it is useful, and that, uARM, my modular ARM emulator was being used in a few universities to teach courses on architecture. Se said that he doubts this, and even if true it proves nothing.

#1 asked if I was familiar with running linux on very limited hardware. I said that yes, and I had in fact run it on an AVR a while ago. “That is all crap” was his reply.

At this point I was a bit stupefied. Instead of asking me questions, he was just insulting. But ok, perhaps it was a cultural difference, so I persevered.

#1 asks if I had had any experience porting android to any devices. I pointed out that yes, I had ported new versions of android to a number of old devices, and once to a watch that had had no android support previously at all, and besides that I worked in Android at Google. He told me none of that is what they are looking for.

I asked what it is they are looking for, and he said: people who have experience with android porting. I re-explained carefully that what I had just told him is that I had ported android to a number of devices and was quite familiar with the process. He again said that “no, that is not what we need, this is worthless”

#1 asked me if I had ever made changes to android graphics stack. I said that yes, I had, including writing my own implementation of gralloc and HWComposer on a weird 2D accelerator on a weird MIPS chip. He said that yet again no, that is all “crap”

At this point, I had had enough. So when he asked me again (for some reason) why I thought I was a fit, i replied: “well, I clearly see now that I am not. Sorry for wasting your time.”

I got up and left.

Given this sort of interviewing process, I am not at all surprised of the outcome of this company.