I applied online. The process took two weeks. I applied for a Principal Software Engineer for GitHub Copilot. A recruiter reached out to me by email to schedule the first screening round ASAP. I was surprised, because it isn't how it worked a few years back, when there was an introductory screening call with a recruiter first. In a few days, the recruiter called me from abroad on my mobile phone to discuss the interview process and expectations. Compared to a few years back, the information shared regarding rounds wasn't as detailed, but basic information was provided. A few years back, I received information on what soft skills they are looking for in each round, and that could be used to prepare examples for discussion. It was not the case this time.

We did the screening round. The interviewer was based in the US. It went well, with a discussion mainly about past experience. A week later, the recruiter phoned me to regrettably inform me that they have decided not to move forward and provided feedback why. They reportedly saw a gap in incident handling, which looks like a proxy reason to me or a misunderstanding, as I have really solid experience in making sure we have a quick resolution, root cause analysis, and prevention. The job opening was generic, and it mentioned many programming languages, but it turned out they use almost exclusively Go on the project. I did specifically open this question on both screening calls to judge tech fit. This, together with the solution running in Azure, where I lack experience, was probably the main reason for rejection. I would have given this a positive rating if the process was as organized as a few years back. It may take a few years until I apply again, as the site serves as a junkyard for projects they don't want to do in the US, and I'm not interested in that.

The topics were:

• Questions about past experience.
• Technical problems solved.
• What do you think differentiates principal engineers from senior engineers.
• Incident handling.