Started the process thru an external recruiter. The original job description mentioned that it was a remote position and I explicitly mentioned to the recruiter that I was not planning to move to London. First step was an interview with who would be the engineer running the new SRE team that is being created in Europe. Informal talk, some small technical questions, background talk and some explanations about the new team that the company wanted to create remote across Europe (again, explicitly mention that I was supposed to work remotely). Next step was a technical interview with an Engineer from USA. We used a shared code editor and went over two exercises. The interviewer was really kind and gave a hand to calm me down as I usually get nervous in this kind of "real time" coding exercises. Finally I was told that next day I was supposed to get a 2 hours videoconference interview and then a visit to their office onsite for the final technical interview. Here is when things started going wrong. I didn't get any interview appointment and after checking with the recruiter that introduced me to confluent, he told me that everything would be delayed due to Thanksgiving week. I waited a week and they were back again on a Friday stating that I would have an interview the week after in their office and asked me to prepare an architectural design of a SaaS service like their Kafka as a Service product because I would discuss it for a couple of hours while I was in London office. There was no mention on plane tickets so I asked whether I should get them myself. The answer I got was a question from the recruiter whether I would consider moving permanently to London... I said no because that's not what I was looking for. I never hear back from them, except for and ack I got from the recruiter when I told him I may get another offer soon from another company so I would need to see some progress from Confluent or I would not be interested. No rejection email at all, just silence as an answer....

Four interviews in total, plus a technical exam. First is a Zoom call with one of their hiring managers. Second comes a brief Zoom call with the Line Manager looking to fill the role. Third comes a technical interview and then a technical exam which you can do offline and are given one week to complete. Finally, you go before a New Hire Panel, which has around ten people on it normally.