I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks.

I went through four stages of interviews for a Senior Full-Stack Engineer position, including three 60-minute technical interviews. I want to be fair about the interview experience itself: all of the interviewers were very nice, professional, and technically strong. I genuinely enjoyed the conversations and had some excellent technical discussions with the team. The interviews covered architecture, API design, security, distributed systems, coding, and deployment, and I felt the process gave me a good impression of the engineering team.

Unfortunately, the way the process ended was extremely disappointing. After completing the full interview loop, I was told that I would receive an update once the remaining candidates had been interviewed. Instead, I was informed that leadership had shifted the headcount to another project and that the company was no longer hiring for the position. I asked for feedback because I had invested a significant amount of time and preparation into the process.

To their credit, the recruiter subsequently provided detailed feedback from the interview panel and confirmed that the team had been impressed with my technical performance. They specifically highlighted my:

• architectural approach
• full-stack knowledge
• live coding performance
• communication
• ability to discuss technical trade-offs

So this does not appear to have been a case of failing the technical interviews or losing out to another candidate. The position itself was closed due to an internal headcount change.

That said, from a candidate's perspective, reaching the end of a lengthy interview process only to discover that the position is no longer available is a very frustrating experience. Candidates invest many hours preparing, interviewing, and potentially putting other opportunities on hold, so I think companies should be particularly careful about the certainty of the headcount before asking candidates to go through such an extensive process.

Overall: very positive experience with the interviewers and technical discussions, but a very disappointing outcome and candidate experience due to the role being cancelled at the end of the process. If you're considering applying, I'd be aware that even after reaching the final stages, internal changes can apparently result in the position being closed.