I had five rounds of interviews: a recruiter phone screen, hiring manager, two peers, and a skip-level. Everyone I spoke with was excellent and represented Ōura well. They’re fortunate to have this level of talent on the team. The recruiter was consistently communicative, typically saying we would reconnect after the weekend and then following up on Friday to schedule the next round. That pattern of underpromising and overdelivering continued through the final stage. I was told the team would meet Monday to make a decision. As had become routine, the recruiter reached out the Friday before to schedule a call Monday. This generally signals that an offer is coming. Instead, they waited until Monday afternoon to let me know they had chosen another candidate. The message could have been sent by email on Friday. Instead, I spent the weekend expecting an offer and paused my job search. While underpromising and overdelivering can be a smart strategy from time-to-time, in this case it felt misleading and left a bad taste.