Sent in my 1 page CV to an external recruiter. They didn't ask for a Cover Letter, but I wrote and sent one anyway. Called back for a 30min technical phone interview, for which I was asked to complete a "coding homework". This consisted of a question in Python/Java, and a question in SQL. The interviewer for this portion was extremely friendly and helped me out even on questions where I struggled to answer. He really engaged with me when I demonstrated my curiosity about what he was asking me. Initially I was under the impression that we would exclusively discuss my code because that's all I was told. However, that only lasted about 10 minutes. The remaining 20 minutes were on sort of random computer science questions: how do hash maps work, what are decorators, big O and runtime complexity etc.
Second interview was also technical. First, over an hour of pair programming, and then 45 minutes of working through problems relating to computer science fundamentals. Also a great experience, really friendly and expert level people. 1 interviewer for the first portion, 2 different ones in the second portion.
Finally, another 2 hour interview which was more about my motivation, past projects, and deep diving into my CV, as well as come technical questions e.g. compare two programming languages and explain which you prefer. Again, 1 interviewer for the first portion, 2 different ones in the second portion.
Overall I was really impressed at how kind, polite, and open all the interviewers were. The process itself was enjoyable too.
