It was a long process, taking over 6 months.

• Initial Screening Call
• HM Interview
• Stakeholder Interview
• System Design
• Coding
• Cultural Fit

The initial screening call was a typical HR call, and the HM round was mostly about experience, handling certain cases, and management style.

The stakeholder interview was business-oriented, with many questions asked related to KPIs, success metrics, Agile, and Ways of Working.

System Design interviews are usually ones I enjoy, but this time the interviewers were a bit dull, asking the same question repeatedly and looking for a certain type of answer. That was a red flag for me about the company; putting these kinds of people as interviewers, the face of the company, is always a question mark. Anyway, although it was not one of my best interviews since I did not have fun and enjoy it, the recruiter said I had passed.

The Coding Interview was amazing, and I super enjoyed it. The question was challenging, and I liked coding it. It was a graph question with some sort of priority.

The final round was a sort of "how to react and handle" certain cases, questions designed to expose my personality.

After passing all these rounds, it took over 2 months to get an offer. Initially, they said that although I passed all the rounds and all the feedback was amazing, they would not move forward. That was the second red flag for me.

Eventually, the offer was below my expectations. They offered what they promised 6 months ago; however, inflation had spiked at this time, and they did not put in more, so I declined it.

Usually, companies of this level send a survey after the final round or decision to improve their process. Surprisingly, I did not receive any!

P.S. I cannot expose the exact interview questions, but nothing magical.

• Tell me about a time you failed gracefully.

• How do you prioritize tech debt over business requirements?

• How do you handle low or overperformers?