This was the most time-wasting experience of my life. I was first contacted by a recruiter in March for this role and sent my CV. I interviewed with a recruiter and did the paper test they required. Only to find out that they rejected me before the final round interview because they needed someone to start in April and the latest. They knew this was not possible because my graduation date was clearly indicated on my CV and the recruiter even brought this up in our first call. I literally could not start work any earlier since I am submitting a research paper and my request to publish has to be confirmed a month in advance. Despite knowing this, the HR was very pushy on me somehow magically finishing my degree four months earlier than I expected. It seemed like they were very pushy and then blew me off very quickly when it suited them. Fast forward to May, the recruiter reached out to me on WhatsApp again for the same role, saying that they were still hiring and they would like to give me the final round interview now. I though hmm okay, I am still interested in the role so why not. Now, retrospectively, I know this is a huge red flag. Did the final interview the next day, went well, staff very friendly though my interviewer was a random person from another internal business function and she asked me very repetitive dull questions that often times made little sense. I had to ask many questions to clearly understand her requests. It felt very limiting. The China HR told me I'd know the outcome by the end of the week. Except I didn't. I was ghosted for three weeks. The reason they gave me was "we are no longer hiring for this role." I know this is a lie because a friend of mine applied and got the job. I think the real issue is they hire and fire en mass, lost track of how many people were hired, and also didn't want to wait to apply for SPass or Ep for me. Funny thing is, my friend hates the job despite only being there for two weeks. There is little to no training, work culture is dull and higher ups are mean and belittling, and they are known to hire and fire en masse (for this role at least). Avoid at all costs. Nothing positive. Absolute waste of time, HR do not care one bit about you.

There were several rounds of interviews. One interview round involved demonstrating a write up for a complicated question asked of a LLM. None of the interview rounds were particularly hard, and they were truly testing for logic flow.