Applied online. Recruiter call was in a few days. Tech screen went good, but the job I applied to was filled and they transferred me to another role.
The interviewer were professional and friendly, but after each onsite round I had major concerns about wanting to join. 2 rounds went atleast ok or better, third round went bad, and in hindsight I dodged a bullet (for my career).
Behavioral - barely any leadership or actual behavioral conversations. I won’t go into details, but this was the weirdest interview of this sort I ever been in. Manager was clearly inexperienced and I would have had a tough time building a career in their team. Biggest red flag - was how much of a push back the company seems to have for large scale ai adoption.
Coding - dealbreaker where I failed. The interview schedule said x and the interview was for y. I had been prepping and went in for something completely different from what the interviewer wanted to focus on. In normal times I could have answered it well. But a high stakes interview, red flags from other interviews, miscommunicated expectations. Just not the best environment to succeed. That said, another red flag - the interviewer was complaining about how many meetings they had that weeks. And that they were “forced” to attend ai meetings.
System design - went decent, I might have fared better in explaining the why, rather than just the how. Scope for improvement but not rejection imo. Minor red flag - how much the interviewer seemed disengaged with the actual work they were doing.
Also, did I mention 3 typos and 2 grammatical errors in the schedule email!
An ai-averse Eng team, scheduling team who doesn’t have basic proof reading?
Sure, it would have been a notable pay bump if I had an offer and joined, but that would have risked career stagnation.
