The job description touts investment from some members of the "PayPal Mafia." For some odd reason that fact that and the SAT requirement combine to make this whole thing feel kind of normal.
> Please note that we will also rely significantly on both solicited references (where you introduce us) as well as unsolicited or "back-end" references (where we do our own). For the latter, please rest assured that we will never contact a current employer without first getting your permission.
References already give me goosebumps. Having them reach out to people who haven't given you permission to be a reference sounds like a recipe for disaster.
If they do sensitive work for the government, it'd make sense that they'd do those back-end references. Also if they are in high end finance where you want to weed out people who have demonstrated moral flexibility was well as total lack of it for certain things.
> If they do sensitive work for the government, it'd make sense that they'd do those back-end references.
If they do government work that requires clearances, the clearance process already covers this sort of investigation on its own.
In any case, they are free to do whatever background checks they want within legal limits, but I'd never apply to a company with such ridiculous hiring processes.