Rejected for "not asking questions". Here is my experience:

• HR screening
• Manager + Senior IC interview for one hour: this one consisted of deep Kubernetes questions and some behavioral questions - got great feedback
• Presentation and communication: they will send you an email explaining a problem and do a presentation on how I would solve it. For me it was designing SLI, SLO and talk about observability for video translation service: I created an elaborate presentation discussing the problem, identifying critical paths, discussing potential SLIs, setting target SLOs and talking about reporting/alerting using concept of Error Budget Rate and how to use it to balance feature work vs stability work. I received extremely positive feedback after this round - things like "you're the only one passed this round so far", "manager did not have any negative feedback basically", "no one else is competing with you at this point" my recruiter made it like I almost got the job already.
• The next interview round was about System Design, I got an email asking me to prepare for a whiteboard session where I should implement the solution I presented and listed several requirements such as "rate-limiting", "security", etc. I did even better than the presentation, ran a very structured session where I started with discussing the "Functional" and "Non-functional" Requirements, paused, asked questions, invited discussion. I talked about non-functional aspect such as security, scalability, availability, etc. Covered all bases. I have the whiteboard saved from Zoom meeting, I have done interviews with Silicon Valley companies before (I'm an ex-VMware, Couchbase, Electronic Arts, etc), THIS was my best interview ever.

Mind you, I'm not insecure about getting rejected - but check this out. I was rejected for "the primary reason not to move forward is that insufficient time was taken to clarify the requirements and scope of the task before diving into a solution".

Really?? Not only I asked questions, I dedicated an entire part of the interview for discussing two major kinds of requirements. If I could share pictures, I would love to show you the whiteboard I have, the left 30% of the whiteboard is English handwriting, all words, bullet-point list, not a single box or arrow. Thirty percent of the white space was dedicated to debating and discussing requirements. I only started drawing "diving into a solution", after I ended that part, at which point I asked the interviewers, how do you feel about that? are we on the same page? (mind you that was my second time inviting debate), awkward silence, then one said "I think it sounds good".

I know I'm not exotic, I know I'm not going to improve your DEI metrics. But so what now? Do men have to undergo some hormone therapy to become hireable in the tech industry, how out of touch can those companies be? My advise is not to apply if you do not belong to one of those categories, because it will be just a huge waste of time for you.

• What happens when you create a Kubernetes deployment?