I applied through a YC post, and was contacted a few days later by a manager. We met for 45 minutes and the interview seemed like it was going great. I really enjoyed talking to him. He was friendly, smart, and asked great questions, and seemed like someone I would work well with. I answered all of his technical questions perfectly, and have several years of experience with what they are working on. He explained that they would contact me in three days for next steps, and described what the interview process would be like and he seemed very interested in going forward. After the call I was really excited about the position and learning more about the company. I was quite shocked when he contacted me a week later and told me in a very cold email that they would not be going any further with my application. No feedback or clues on why they suddenly wouldn't be sending me onto the next round. It just felt like a waste of my time, and it didn't seem like a real interview that I was given a fair chance at. All I can assume is that there isn't an open position here at all, and they just wanted some free advice on how to manage and scale Elasticsearch since that's mostly what we talked about. Or perhaps he didn't want to hire me because I'm a female and a minority in tech, and he just wanted to give off the appearance that he was interviewing us. Just a really strange company. In my 15+ years in tech this is not an experience I've had before. They pretty clearly have some major issues with their hiring process.