I had 5 interviews with Datadog, and the recruiter told me I would go to the final stage which was the sales challenge. However, 4 days after this and still no scheduled final stage, I get a rejection email out of the blue, saying they have chosen to go with another candidate... Very unprofessional and strange, as the recruiter also re-confirmed salary expectations and all the details earlier this week with me.

Lengthy process. First a recruiter screen, then hiring manager, then a conversation focused on pipe gen. and win story, then regional VP, then mock disco. Strong emphasis on pipeline generation. After receiving the prompt and spending about 20-30 hours preparing for the presentation / mock disco the cancelled on me day of.

Met with recruiting team who were extremely helpful and insightful around the company, process and expectations. Then had the unfortunate displeasure of having to talk with the hiring manager. This was for a role in the southern part of the US and this manager had no ability to interview. They only talked about themselves, asked no questions, left no time for my questions. The majority of the time as they were babbling they were actively trying to scare me away from the position. I was told "my job is to make you never want to work here because it sounds so hard". At that point I knew I'd never want to work here, at least not for this person. At the end I was told that I'd meet with some people on the team, but instead I reached out to the recruiter and told them I know longer had any interest if it was going to be working for that person.