I was not actively looking for a new role, but I was contacted directly by a hiring manager from Mistral AI regarding an engineering position.

The interview started without much of a welcoming impression; it felt very formal and distant from the beginning. The interviewer asked very general questions about my experience with Terraform.

I explained that I have been using Terraform extensively since 2017, building self-designed modules, managing remote states, and deploying microservices across AWS, Azure, and even local provisioning environments. I also mentioned that I had worked with engineers from HashiCorp on several projects.

When I asked for more details about the position so I could provide concrete and relevant examples, the interviewer didn’t elaborate further. Later, I received a rejection stating they were looking for someone with “better experience,” which was quite surprising given my background.

After receiving the decision, I politely shared my feedback about the interview experience but never received any acknowledgment or response, which was disappointing for a company of their reputation.

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