Recruiter contacted through Linkedin contacts - forwarded resume which was put up in the list and selected by Engineering Team. The team members contact directly and there was no HR/recruiter intervention in the whole process - liked it. Phone screen was about basic networking and testing methodology concepts. Was selected for onsite interview. Onsite interview was taken by 3 senior engineers all sitting together in the same room - largely divided into two parts : first part was about debugging a customer field scenario for a Networking system test bug - along with clarifying protocol concepts as I debugged. The second part is about a switch performance issue debugging in a test/lab environment. Did well in both and the feedback was given instantly. Manager contacted few days later and called for a talk - took about 1.5 hours - asked everything about views about teamwork, projects I worked on, about job role and fitment etc. Asked about 5 references including past supervisors - gave them all. All were contacted between 2 to 5 days. All positive so far - and here comes a frustrating wait for 2 weeks+ for "obtaining offer approval". After 2 weeks and repeated email, got the shocker email that "unfortunately no offer can be made at this point". Very disappointed - should have been upfront if there was a concern about paying higher salary or if there has been a hiring freeze etc.