The other company paid twelve percent more but every interviewer on that loop seemed checked out. My current manager asked me a genuinely curious question about my last project during the interview itself, which told me more than the compensation numbers did. Culture from the interview loop turned out to be a real signal, not just vibes.
Would be curious if this holds up at the two-year mark too, not just three months. Manager quality in an interview loop is still a sample size of a few hours, some of the worst managers I've had interviewed great.
I used to think loop energy was too subjective to act on until I started timing how fast interviewers answered a genuine off-script question. The slow, generic answers lined up almost perfectly with the offers I ended up regretting.
Following up, did you ever second guess the pay gap once you settled in, or did it stop mattering?
The interviewer being 'checked out' is such an underrated red flag. I ignored it once and regretted it within two months.
