I was contacted by a recruiter at Databricks, London, for the position of pre-sales Solutions Architect. It was a standard process, which involved:

• Hiring manager screening
• Coding assignment
• Technical video interview
• Architecture video interview
• Team member interview
• Hiring manager video interview
• Area Vice-President video interview

At the end of the sixth interview, the recruiter told me that I did pretty well in all the rounds and asked me to get references from my previous managers to provide Databricks. Since she already asked me to get the references, I thought that I was being offered the position and that the next round was just a formality. I had the final interview the following day, after which the recruiter told me that I would receive a response within a couple of days. When I contacted the recruiter, she told me to wait for one week, as they wanted to have an internal discussion about the position offered to me. In the end, I never heard back from the recruiter who contacted me initially or Databricks.

I have interviewed at many places in the past and landed offers and roles at some very competitive ones. This, by far, was the worst interviewing experience. I've learned what to watch out for. On the positive side, it certainly helped me create better boundaries for the future.

General DS and architecture related questions