At the beginning of the interview process, the HR informed me that there would be three rounds: two technical interviews followed by a final HR discussion.
After completing the second technical round with the CTO, which went very well, I did not receive any update for four days. When I followed up, HR responded saying that the CTO wanted to conduct one more round, as some questions were left out in the previous discussion.
The third round was scheduled the very next day for 30 minutes, but it only lasted about 15 minutes. It included just three questions, all related to ways of working and tools used—there were no technical questions, and nothing related to AWS was discussed.
Surprisingly, the very next morning I received a message saying I was not selected. When I called to understand the reason, HR mentioned that they were looking for a "more experienced AWS developer." This feedback was confusing, as AWS-specific skills were not even evaluated in the final round, and until the second round, I had received positive feedback, including from the CTO, who said they would discuss further with HR and the first-round interviewer.
This sequence of events made it seem like the third round was conducted merely as a formality to close the loop with a rejection, rather than a genuine technical evaluation.
