A recruiter reached out to me from Headway and after learning more about the company I was really excited to move through with the interview process. The recruiter was very responsive and helpful. She explained to me that the listing says senior, but that they were hiring across all levels, which I was excited about since I didn’t feel as though I was senior level yet. Emails confirming the interview outlined exactly what to expect. This worked out well for round 1, not so much for round 2. Round 1 - Coding Challenge: email stated that it would be conducted over CodeSignal, the goal of the interview was to see how you work through the problem, and that you could even look things up online if you needed to, as long as you didn’t use AI. My interviewer ended up switching at the very last minute. The person I interviewed with was amazing, super nice, and made the experience very pleasant overall. I had a great time learning more about the company. The interview went exactly how the email stated. 10/10 experience. Round 2 - System Architecture Design: The email said that I would be expected to talk in detail about a project that I have done within the past two years where I had the broadest scope of responsibility/ownership. I would have to diagram in real time, and then talk in more detail about any tradeoffs and technical complexities. I would also expect behavioral questions as well. This was going to be my first time really doing an interview like this, so I was a bit nervous, and to make matters worst, I ended up getting covid for the first time so I had to reschedule. My interviewer for this round started us off with doing personal intros, and then jumped right to “Tell me about some technical complexities you’ve dealt with” I was a bit thrown because based off the email, I was given the impression I would first talk about the project/diagram it before diving into technical complexities and tradeoffs. I found it difficult to talk about technical complexities without first talking about the project, so I tried to give a quick overview and then discuss what I felt like were the technical complexities and she seemed bored beyond belief. I don’t blame her, I’m sure it’s boring, but it sucks to try to explain yourself in an interview for a company you would love to work for, and feel like the person interviewing you is counting down the minutes for it to end. Later on I tried diagramming different parts out and she said, “we don’t need to get into all of that data stuff”. My heart dropped. I was doing my best at that time, and I still wasn’t feeling my best due to Covid. Maybe I should have pushed it back another week. She ended the interview with “okay you have my email”, and cut it about 10-15min short. I didn’t even have her email. I reached back out to the recruiter, asking for the interviewer’s email, and she ghosted me. Two days later, she sent me a generic rejection letter. This was a learning experience for me, and ultimately I think I wasn’t a high enough level for what they were looking for, despite what the recruiter said. I did feel very blindsided in the second round, and felt as though I was given a bad interviewer. I obviously didn’t do round 3, but that would have been a virtual on site with three rounds.