I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks.

Recruiter reached out on LinkedIn and I said I would love to hear more. He planned a call and we had a chat about my current role and motivations, he asked for my current salary and my expected salary which I told him both. I had 4 interview rounds after - one technical, live coding, system design 1, system design 2 all 1hr each. The feedbacks were always great and the recruiter was happy to keep moving.

At the end, he made me an offer that means I would be taking over 10k euros pay cut and 40k less than my expected salary which we discussed initially. Of course I was open to negotiation but how would you offer me a pay cut? I felt really insulted with the offer. It's either they were dishonest with the feedbacks which were always positive or they have unconscious gender bias or they really don't believe I could earn as much as I currently do. I honestly would have preferred being told that I failed rather than give me a ridiculous offer after wasting my time.

Also, my first system design interview even though it went well was a total ambush, I wasn't told what to expect. I should have been told what the focus of interview to expect is (even Google would tell you).

Live coding and system design