Okay, I think everyone else was right. Take this review as summary of the other 38 reviews for the same role at the time of me giving this interview. Gave the interview in April 25, I am from Tier 1, okaish profile and switches every 2 years. The interview experience was neutral. First of all, the interviewer was atleast communicative as opposed to mentioned in the other interviews. He did seem like he was interested in what I was telling. The approach of the interviewer was something which I am not a huge fan of. I have worked as Principal Engineer in other companies, so I expect the interviewee to back everything they say. But never that they should be perfect. Following are the perfectionist points expected as per the feedback from HR - 1. I didn't give the proper response (that meant I returned SUCCESS instead of true in the API response). Now that's something stupid tbh. 2. When querying a db, I explained we needed to update a row, but actually that required me to make another row update simultaneously. I initially didn't add that, but once the interviewer nudged me I explained everything about how that is important and the idea of 2 phase commit. But this instantly became a negative point. Result - Down levelled to Senior Software immediately (as seen in the other reviews). Tbh, I wasn't expecting much so didn't feel bad. The round was cleared though if that made any difference. Epilogue - Just like other reviews, I know we all want to get the Principal role because it's high paying obviously. But just don't bank on this interview. If you're answering picture perfect, maybe GPT is answering for you, you can clear, else down levelled. So do take your chance, prepare the questions well.

Standard process for a platform engineer (SRR) role, around what you have completed. Completing a coding exam on data structures for this role is unusual though. Role seemed more for application development than SRE.