Searched for a job for a year — landed one for $10K. Data Scientist shares observations about 16 interviews and 5+ companies

Data Scientist Eugene (known in the local community as 'Eugene Vano') relocated from Belarus to the Czech Republic and navigated his way from «relaxed» startups to large corporations with hustle culture. He candidly shares his experiences with scammer companies, dictatorial project management, Indian lobbying, toxic rejections, and his personal hiring principles.

In the finale — useful Red and Green Flags for those at a career crossroads.

The Czech market specifics: local companies, «second-tier» players, and corporations

I left Belarus for the Czech Republic in early 2022, as EPAM provided that opportunity. Later, the company faced difficulties and made cuts. I took the first available position at a Czech product company, and my standard of living noticeably declined. In 2024, I decided to look for better offers without compromising. The job search process ended up taking almost a year.

During this time, I went through about 16 interviews and researched the market, dividing companies into three categories.

The first category includes either local startups or companies serving the domestic market. The atmosphere there is relaxed: for Belarusians, especially those who worked at EPAM or Yandex, it would feel like retirement. The downside is that Czech language knowledge is required. The pay is modest — even less than in the CIS countries.

An acquaintance of mine juggled three such jobs since there’s minimal oversight. The main thing is to complete tasks on time and close sprints (two-week cycles). In this scenario, two «relaxed» jobs can provide decent income. Senior positions hit a ceiling of around $5,000 monthly before taxes, and two such salaries combined are actually quite good.

The second type comprises foreign second-tier companies that aren’t widely known. Their salary ceiling is $7-8 thousand, occasionally reaching $9 thousand gross. In the Czech Republic, taxes can consume up to a quarter of your gross income. The atmosphere in these companies is more intense since they produce international-level products. Yet the salaries still don’t match the workload. These companies often understate salary expectations from the start, well aware that there are fewer vacancies than applicants.

The third type includes corporations — international giants with tens or even hundreds of thousands of employees. Microsoft, Oracle, Pure Storage, Merck, and others. They offer the highest salaries and «sweet» conditions: you can earn $10,000+ monthly before taxes. It’s a gold mine, but inside there’s a hustle culture: overtime is acceptable, sometimes the amount of unpaid overtime is even specified in the contract. People from the CIS who worked at Yandex and EPAM often go there because it’s a familiar work style. Combining such corporate work with another job won’t be possible.

Barclays: interview rudeness and the «Indian lobby»

The first interviews were unremarkable, and the offers resembled those I’d received before.

But as 2025 began, second and third-tier companies started getting budgets and expanding their staff — fortunately, I had more choices.

For instance, I had two separate interviews at Barclays for different positions. This British investment bank has a huge office in Prague and an equally large office in India.

At the first interview, the man interviewing me joined the call wearing a tank top. Initially, he wanted to hear about my experience, but when he realized it didn’t meet his expectations, he lost interest, muted the call… and left to get a package. He literally left in the middle of the interview. He returned and apologized, of course… but then started unboxing live on camera. Honestly, I hadn’t seen such rudeness in a long time.

For the second position at Barclays, I progressed well until the final interview about corporate values. It’s difficult to fail if you confidently talk about things like «we’re family,» «we have a mission,» «customer first,» «work not for good enough, but for excellence,» and so on. The time for the final interview was already scheduled, but the next day it was canceled, and they wrote that they’d hired another candidate.

Later, my acquaintances told me about the so-called Indian lobby. After opening an office in India that’s larger than the London headquarters, [allegedly] nepotism began in management: Indians try to promote their own candidates. And [according to the storytellers] they do it by joining interviews and asking questions unrelated to the applicant’s job specifics. For example, someone interviewing for a backend developer position might be asked about frontend, BI analytics, or architectural solutions. Then they say the candidate failed and promote «their own.» This is, to put it mildly, trash-level corporate ethics.

Large company interviews are typically multi-staged processes that can take a month or more to complete. Thankfully, they rarely give take-home assignments now, so it’s possible to interview with several companies simultaneously. At Barclays, for example, there were five selection stages: screening, technical interview, architectural thinking section, another tech session on data modeling and approaches. And the fifth stage was about compatibility with corporate values.

Too smart for Collibra, taken for a fool at Teya

Among other trash stories — an interview with Belgian company Collibra, which makes data catalogs. They pretend to be an American company with a New York office. They had a data manager who was somewhat behind the times — technology-wise. He sits in New York and, it seems, doesn’t track what’s happening in the industry at all. I suggested using ClickHouse — a popular, high-performance database from Yandex. I asked if they had tested it or looked at benchmarks. And apparently, this manager took offense — they had chosen some random solution.

In the end, I received a spectacular rejection: «You’re an excellent specialist with great technical knowledge, but we’re looking for someone who wouldn’t interfere with architectural decisions.» It was a «you’re too smart» type of rejection. I didn’t even know such rejections existed.

Another trash story was with London-based company Teya. They deal with payment terminals in Europe, installing them in restaurants, cafes, delivery services, and so on. The candidate’s task spectrum was very, very impressive, but when it came to money, they named a laughable amount. The salary was simply comically low, absolutely disproportionate to the volume of responsibilities. I honestly wrote to them about this, and they started backpedaling, saying I misunderstood them. They claimed it was a «position with growth potential» and so on. Ultimately, they even agreed to increase the offer by a quarter. Essentially, it was an attempt to find someone they could underpay, but it didn’t work.

There was also an interview with pharmaceutical giant Merck. They were looking for a «jack of all trades»: they needed both a data engineer and a systems analyst, essentially two positions in one. I pointed this out and suggested paying at least one and a half salaries for combining two roles. In the end, they gaslighted me, saying I misunderstood everything and shouldn’t tell them what their vacancy actually entails. They said they would contact me when they deemed necessary. It was a rather strange experience.

There was another situation where I was asked during an interview if I spoke Czech, even though we had been speaking English the whole time. I said no. And the person seemed to straighten up at that moment… But on the other hand, can we blame them for this? It’s not such a big requirement, after all.

My acquaintances also had trash stories. For example, one was asked to check in daily with a chip in a tracking system, like in factories.

And overall, remote work has become less common now. Although in 2024, a hybrid mode — two days from the office, three days from home — was probably the standard for IT. But in 2025, they started offering more 3/2 — three days from the office, two from home — or even 4/1, or a full five-day office week.

Stress interviews and strange assignments

I work in a specific field — data — so the stress interview begins when they ask me to write code that returns data. There’s a query language called SQL. And if I get something unexpected, trash data — that’s when the stress begins. So the stress comes more from the technical part.

I think they like to push juniors around more. Simply to introduce additional selection criteria.

Because we must remember: the employer is not your friend. They’re a business shark. Unfortunately, the current market is flooded with IT students, especially in Prague. And what to do with them? So they have to come up with all sorts of nonsense to filter people out.

Among unexpected questions I’ve been asked in interviews — why are manhole covers round, not square? The answer is because square ones are difficult to roll to the scrap yard. But this is conditionally correct because it’s a logic problem.

Or once I was asked to estimate how many double-leaf windows there might be in Prague. Or, for example, a classic puzzle about how to measure a specific quantity of water using jugs with different, non-multiple volumes.

The model with «nuances»

The model interview experience was with Pure Storage — an American company that deals with data storage servers. They had a six-stage interview process, but everything was maximally professional. I’d give their coding interview a 10 out of 10. It wasn’t just a coding interview; it was an exchange of experience. It felt like I’d been preparing for this interview my whole life. In the end, I accepted their offer and doubled my income: I started earning over 200,000 crowns or $10,000 per month.

But as they say, be careful what you wish for. Even if the interview and hiring process was very good and the manager was very cool, it doesn’t mean the project will be good.

Although I must give them credit — they warned me there were «nuances.» These «nuances» turned out to be Indians (external contractors on the project) who had written some wild code. And now I have to clean up these «Augean stables.»

Another nuance — due to the previous approach, nobody really understands what’s going on. Sometimes, finding the right person who would understand the situation takes more effort than the work itself. However, thanks to the chaos, you can get lost in the murky water and focus on your own tasks.

Among the downsides — Pure Storage is transitioning to a five-day office week starting in September. What’s forcing them to do this? They’re supposedly an American company from Silicon Valley — where could you find something more progressive? But unfortunately, they’re pushing people into the office. In my view, this will lead to a deterioration in the quality of personnel, as many won’t agree to such conditions.

An offer I regretted

In 2022, I accepted an offer from Czech company G. And regretted it because they were scammers. They deceived people from third-world countries through a gaming application where you supposedly could win money. But they did everything possible to avoid paying — they nitpicked at any player actions. Filipinos or other Southeast Asian residents are easy to scam because «they’re poor, they won’t go to court.» Unfortunately, that was the company’s mindset.

When I realized this, I became deeply depressed. The company still operates and hasn’t faced any responsibility. Moreover, its founder established many other companies, including motivational/coaching businesses. LinkedIn ads, a cool office… You know, as if karma doesn’t work at all…

G. had the worst management practices. Literally a dictatorship without any balance. I believe «turning on the dictator» is necessary only when positive reinforcement doesn’t work. At other times, motivation should be built on carrots with clear boundaries of what’s acceptable. Although managers can be understood too. IT specialists, unfortunately, don’t have the best soft skills. These are guys from whom every word must be extracted with forceps. And when they start acting up, you don’t understand what’s happening to them at all. Like: a person came to the office, did tasks, and then stopped responding to manager pings and completes one task in three months. On one hand, maybe they burned out. On the other, maybe they’ve already found another job. You think they’re good, but they’re like that.

There have been situations where I accepted an offer, but it served as a backup landing spot. Because this game can be played by both sides.

For example, there was a tasty offer — for 150,000 crowns — from SimilarWeb. It’s an Israeli company, generally good. But I didn’t like their interview process. It was clear I’d be doing something unclear. Possibly being a jack-of-all-trades. They offered a position starting in a few months, but an offer has no legal force. And in this window, I continued looking for work. I found it — and, accordingly, accepted another company’s offer. I wrote to them: «Thanks, guys, it was great. The offer is good, but alas, no.»

But you shouldn’t play around too much either. I think there are certain «blacklists» of applicants that aren’t publicized because the GDPR law, the personal data protection law, is in effect in Europe. But companies, for example at the recruiter level, might exchange such lists — the chances aren’t zero.

Red & Green Flags

Here are three signs of a good company that you can identify during an interview.

• They hear you and accommodate when you talk about your needs. For example, if you need to attend training, procedures, or something like that at a certain time.
• If they’re ready to offer an above-market salary from the start. This means it will be easier to grow financially within the company later.
• When the manager is interested in the candidate as a person. They see a field of tasks for you, talk about it with enthusiasm, inspire you, and you respond by offering your vision and solutions.

When the manager seems unprepared or confused during the interview and can’t answer questions — that’s definitely a Red Flag. Questions like: what exactly will I be doing? What growth opportunities are there? How will this growth be compensated?

The second Red Flag is an attempt to undervalue the candidate from the start. In this case, growing financially within the company will be harder than moving to another company.

And the third «no» — the absence of remote work or flexible scheduling. Often this indicates management’s hypercontrol, which will subsequently demand the imitation of busy activity.

When you go through many interviews, there always comes a point when you’re not looking for work, but work is looking for you. For example, my LinkedIn filled with recruiters and consultants. They reach out proactively and contact you directly. Teya and Collibra found me themselves. Therefore, I advise everyone to develop their social networks, not be afraid to try new things, and not settle for less.

Previously, my priority was development for development’s sake, as if «in a vacuum.» But over time, I realized it’s also important to earn enough to fulfill desires.

At the same time, it’s equally important that work brings pleasure, that it’s simply enjoyable. That you want to go there every morning, not wake up thinking: «Why am I doing this at all, and why am I living the way I’m living?» When it’s fun and you really enjoy the process — that’s the main Green Flag.