Just had one of the weirdest interview experiences. It was supposed to be a 45-minute hiring manager round, but the interviewer showed up late and dragged it out for almost 1.5 hours. Most of it was spent with him grilling me on why I use Cursor instead of Claude (as if you can't use both?). He wouldn't accept my explanation of using them for different parts of my workflow. We only had 15 minutes left for the actual LeetCode question. To top it off, he ended the call by rudely telling me I wasn't 'senior ready.' It felt as though the process lacked structure and respect for the candidate's time.

The interview process felt unnecessarily long and over-engineered for a senior-level position. It consisted of multiple stages, including an initial hiring manager screen with a coding problem, followed by an additional coding round, two separate system design interviews, and a cultural/behavioral round. While I understand the need to evaluate candidates thoroughly, the level of repetition across rounds did not seem to add meaningful signal. It raises the question of whether candidate fit could be assessed more efficiently earlier in the process. From a candidate experience perspective, the time investment required is quite high. A more streamlined process or clearer differentiation between rounds would go a long way in improving this. Additionally, messaging that suggests candidates may need to apply multiple times to succeed may unintentionally signal a lack of calibration in the hiring process rather than a high bar. Overall, while the team may be aiming for thoroughness, the process could benefit from being more focused, time-conscious, and candidate-friendly.