Senior Platform Engineer interview process started well - the recruiter was professional and responsive. However, the technical interview revealed a major disconnect.
The role combines multiple disciplines: distributed systems design (Temporal.io, long running workflows), cloud architecture, DevOps engineering (Terraform, Kubernetes, scaling, monitoring, logging, GitOps, CI/CD), and MLOps. During the interview, I realized they're looking for someone who can design complex distributed systems from scratch while also handling deep infrastructure operations. When I pointed out that these are typically separate specializations - for example, someone who designs Temporal workflows usually doesn't also configure low-level service mesh networking or write Kubernetes security policies - they disagreed with the feedback.
The position has been open in Prague for 4 months with and zero hires. It's now also posted in Bratislava. The interview task (a batch transcription pipeline handling 10h+ audio files) most propably remains unsolved by any candidate.
If you're considering applying, be aware that you'll need to cover both high-level system design and infrastructure operations. The fact that no one has been hired in 4 months suggests the expectations might be unrealistic.