I had three calls as part of the screening process but never made it to a loop.

For the recruiter screening call, they essentially ambushed me and made it into a technical screening call. They provided no prep details and set no expectations regarding how technical the recruiter was, what language they could expect to understand, or how deep to go. They asked very vague questions, and the whole experience was uncomfortable.

The second screening call was with a hiring manager. This was typical behavioral but pretty ruthless overall. They were direct about performance, which was positive, and the experience was good.

Third was a technical coding interview which was partly systems-based. I performed well except for an optimization at the end. By the time we got there, before I had space to optimize, they pushed for a specific optimization. I presented a better one, but they required a specific answer and tried to ask targeted questions in a confusing way. I had a hard time understanding the specific optimization they wanted and was dinged for it.

Overall, my impression is that they want people who can recite all the answers. They don't give space for discussion and collaboration; they want people who have seen the problem before.

Talk about a technical challenge.