It was actually pretty pleasant experience. Technical interviews are demanding, but considering the benefits, I would say expected. In my opinion cultural fit is rather neglected considering the attention given to the technical part, but it seems to be how the overall process is set up.

The Good Recruiter was responsive and professional during scheduling. Salary range was disclosed upfront. The tech stack (Go, Erlang,Kafka, microservices) is genuinely interesting, and the technical interviewer was excellent — made the live-coding session feel comfortable. The Bad 1. I was told the wrong thing about the coding round. Before committing, I explicitly asked whether the coding interview would be DSA-focused. I was told no. So I prepped SOLID, OOP, and clean-code patterns — appropriate for a Senior/Staff role. The rejection email then said, verbatim: "Our first-round technical evaluation places a heavy emphasis on hands-on data structure manipulation." It was a DSA round. The misinformation directly cost me the opportunity. 2. Ghosted after polite feedback. I replied calmly pointing out the mismatch and suggesting they tell future candidates the round is DSA. Zero response. For a 5,000-person company, that's a poor look — a two-sentence reply costs nothing. Advice to candidates: Get the exact coding-round format in writing before you prep. Assume DSA regardless of what you're told.