I interviewed for a senior position on a team in charge of tools for the migration to AWS.

Before the interviews, I explicitly asked if they would focus on engineering principles and background rather than specific tool knowledge, and they confirmed this. So, I completed the interviews, apparently passing all of them. However, the team ultimately rejected me for a lack of knowledge and experience with their tools and stack (k8s, etc.), despite having stated specific knowledge was not required. (It was mentioned as a "nice-to-have" in the job description).

During the follow-up meeting, the manager of another, sibling team joined. They liked my profile and interview outcomes and asked the recruiter if they could meet me for an informal chat. The recruiter then organized a call with me and this other team manager. The informal chat turned out to be an hour of behavioral and technical questions.

Besides, I later learned that the position would have been less senior and offered lower compensation than the one I applied for. I would also have reported to the manager in Bangalore, with no other team members in Dublin. I politely declined the offer and accepted another one I had received.

It was a pity, as I felt I liked the team and could make a significant contribution. Furthermore, I don't understand their gatekeeping and choosy stance on arbitrary technical grounds despite the positive interview outcomes. It doesn't seem to be warranted by what they do (it's not rocket science, and tools can be learned on the job), or by the company's overall financial state (badly hit by the pandemic, in need of a business model refresh).

Standard operations questions. Reasonably easy coding questions. Project deep dive.