The interview process was highly unfocused. It began with a 30m call with the CTO. I was told that the process would be: - Interview with head of marketing - Panel interview, with a technical assignment I was asked to provide a sample of technical content I've previously written and supplied that. The call with the head of marketing went well. When we got to the panel interview, issues appeared. The panel interview was attended by the CTO, two engineers, and a member of the marketing team. The marketing team member laid out the objectives for this role, however later (with the marketing team member out of the room), the CTO made it clear that what that member had said is NOT the focus of the role. While I was clear on the focus of the role from the CTO prior to this round from the initial call, it's concerning when the team members providing feedback for the interview aren't all clear on the focus of the work this role will be doing. At the conclusion of the panel interview, next steps were discussed. The CTO was very excited to proceed with me and said the next step was a meeting with the CEO. This had never been discussed before. Because the CEO's schedule was in flux, I was asked if I was open to the option of joining on a 30-day contract-to-hire basis. This was not only unusual, but also not part of the job posting I had replied to at all. This seemed to be a new, off-the-cuff option that seemed to come out of nowhere. I declined the contract-to-hire option and asked to proceed with the standard interview process. I was also asked to then submit another technical blog (despite having done a technical presentation in the panel interview and submitting a writing sample). At the interview with the CEO, what was presumed to be a more of a pro forma meeting (this was after 2 prior rounds of interviews with his team) to see if I was a culture fit turned into a 2-hour deep strategy and technical dive. The meeting was originally scheduled for one hour and seemed to have no apparent focus or track. It was just question after question, with whiteboarding mixed in. After that, I was asked in again for a 1:1 with the CTO for a technical whiteboarding session on topics I was familiar with and have done developer advocacy in before. While my core competency is in AI, I was directed to whiteboard blockchain topics with no goal, scenario, focus, or understanding of what type of audience this would be. I was asked things like, "explain blockchain to me." As a technical advocate, I'm aware that the role includes explaining technical concepts, however that usually comes in some sort of context, such as a conference, Meetup, webinar, etc. Yet when I asked for some direction so I can figure out an approach, I was told to "just explain it from the beginning." While blockchain is not a technology that's used for this role and has no bearing on it, I was asked to explain a topic in which my familiarity is around a suite of products, rather than the development side, and yet I was still directed to give this whiteboard explanation with no context to my audience in this scenario after making it clear that my knowledge was limited in what I was being asked to explain. When I was asked to whiteboard around AI, the CTO fully disengaged for several minutes during my 1:1 presentation; while I was talking he began engaging with his phone. Although I don't know the purpose of the phone use, doing it during an already tense presentation felt awkward and dismissive. After several interruptions from people requesting the use of the room we were booked into, we finally moved to another room to continue what would be 2.5 hours of whiteboarding after what was supposed to be a 2 round process but had turned into 4 rounds. The CTO ran through a technical breakdown of the platform. Then erased the diagrams and with no forewarning asked me to then recreate everything he'd just explained. After being told that he'd review with the team and get back to me in 2 days, he notified me 2 weeks later that he was not proceeding with my candidacy. The company seems to lack focus on this role. This process had the distinct feel of being made up as it went along. It's incredibly hard for a candidate to do well when there's no static finish line, just a constantly moving target. Whatever it is they felt they needed from me as a candidate, they did not seem to identify, however including the initial 1:1 call with the CTO, I went through 5 rounds with 2 technical challenges and was offered the opportunity to come aboard on a contract-to-hire basis during what was initially explained to me to be the last step of this process. Due to the shifting goal lines, indecision, and internal confusion, I'd made the decision not to accept if offered the position.