I applied online and received an HR call. She asked about my compensation expectation. My expectation was less than what was mentioned in their job description, and the recruiter tried to offer a range within the same range I had asked for.

I proceeded with the coding interview, which I did pretty well. After two weeks, I had my second interview with the hiring manager. I didn't hear back from them for another two weeks, so I decided to follow up.

They responded that, based on my first coding interview, they believed I was a Level 3, not a Senior, and therefore the compensation was different for that role. I checked levels.fyi and told them I was fine moving forward with Level 3 at the 'x' range.

After a long wait, they rejected me. There were lots of red flags:

• They tried to manipulate and lower the band for something they had already mentioned on their website.
• The process was slow, and they ghosted me for two weeks.
• Even though I did well in my coding interview, they assumed I was Level 3. I don't know how they could judge that from one round of coding. If they knew in the first round, they should have told me and not had a second round with the hiring manager.
• Finally, they rejected me.

There was a lot of manipulation here. I'm happy it didn't work out. Company culture and transparency are so important to me. They forget that engineers are smart, and these kinds of tricks are easily understood by them.