Interview Process: - Initial screen with the head of talent. You know how it goes, tell me about yourself, what do you know about the product/company - Chat with the VP Eng about engineering topics. Was very friendly and casual, but had a hard stop at 30 minutes so we didn't get to cover anything particularly in depth although we did focus on technical topics. - 15 minute presentation on a project I managed discussing design, hardships, and solutions. Afterwards there was a 30 minute Q&A with two senior engineers. They were incredibly pleasant and engaged, and asked thoughtful followup questions. - 1 hour chat with a senior engineer on a "case study" describing their process for abstracting data into structured results to give clients. The interviewer instructed that I could touch any aspect of the process I wanted to dive into. This was not a coding session and we did not talk much about technical details. The interviewer was new to the company, and was unable to answer a few of the more focused questions I had about client uses for the output data. They also gave me the impression that the market fit for the product is still questionable and not particularly well defined. They also discussed how the process for developing the customer datasets is almost entirely manual. Overall this was the only round that gave me a net-negative impression of the company. Result and Thoughts: I did not receive an offer, as they stated they decided to go in a different direction to hire for this role. The exact wording was "a recent data hire and new engineering manager are adding some nuances into how we'd best set up our next hire for success." Not quite sure what that means. As someone seeking Staff level engineering roles, I am very upfront that I have a strong focus on product iteration and growth engineering . At every step in the interview I make a point of explicitly mentioning this, as I am trying to suss out if the company has a need for this skillset combination. It's possible that they decided they just wanted some more pure play engineering efforts to pad out the existing process. Fair enough I suppose, but it felt like this was way too late in the process to come to that conclusion, especially given that they had no technical assessment (coding challenge) for me to complete. The only reason I marked the difficulty this high was due to the amount of time I spent preparing the presentation, as I really wanted to make something I was proud of. It's very likely that I did not need to tighten it up to the degree that I did. I had a great time presenting it, so there's no regrets there. What I did like: - The head of talent was very communicative, honest, and flexible in scheduling the interviews. Very high marks here. - The level of engagement the engineers brought to the Q&A really brightened my day. They asked detailed questions that were challenging, but at no point did the interview feel like I was being "tested". It also seemed like they were good friends, which gave me the best impression of the whole process. What I didn't like: Spend more time developing a clear goal for your open roles. Overall I clocked in about 14 hours of total prep for these interviews, and the result of it felt mildly disrespectful. I certainly don't mind not meeting the particular expectations y'all have, but being told "well we're not really sure what we want anymore" feels like y'all wasted my time.