The process started well with a recruiter call, followed by a technical assessment with a senior team member. I was then moved to the virtual onsite interviews, which involved speaking with three different people. Two of these interviews were misleading in terms of context and expected outcome. They were meant to be system design interviews but instead turned out to be problem-solving and process-driven approaches. Overall, these conversations went well.

In the end, I highlighted my concerns during the recruiter touchpoint and was assured there would be a true system design interview if even part of the feedback was positive, which I am confident it would have been.

To my shock, I received a blanket rejection email one week later with no context or feedback. I sent three follow-up emails over the next two weeks requesting any possible feedback or insights, but all my outreach has been ignored so far. This is definitely embarrassing from a candidate treatment standpoint after coming this far in the process.

I certainly hope the talent acquisition team does justice to providing a rich and transparent interview process, as I did enjoy speaking with the team and saw a close fit with the role. I even received a swag pack from Instacart for reaching the final stages of the process.

Signed an NDA to not disclose.