Recruiter screen, the guy I talked to was very nice and easy to talk to, and very upfront and transparent about all my questions. After that, interview with a hiring manager that was just general experience questions. After the interview they told me I wasn't qualified for the role and if I wanted to continue the process I would have to interview at what was essentially a 3 level demotion from my experience. The reason given for my lack of qualification was that I did not have experience mentoring junior engineers, which is something I was asked about 0 times (despite me having 5+ years of mentorship experience). Pointed out that I was happy to go into more details on a follow-up given I wasn't asked about it and did not hear back. Altogether I came away feeling that it was unprofessional to try and tell me to interview for a junior role given my experience, and to give a reason that was not brought up at all in the interviews is a bit disrespectful.

An RH person on LinkedIn has contacted me. He had cancelled the first interview, saying that "Google Meeting is not working". Then we rescheduled for next week. He started saying "Let's do the boring things" and explained the role. Then he asked me to "talk about myself". I've done a summary of my career, avoiding technical things because it was apparently a screening interview. After less than an hour into the interview, he told me that the team had decided not to progress my application. It was strange for me because it was a screening, and the negative feedback came so fast, so I asked for feedback. To be honest, I felt like he just sent the interview transcription to an AI. To my surprise, that was the feedback: "As you interviewed with us back in November 2024. We normally schedule a call just to double-check if any of your circumstances have changed. Compensation, location, notice, for starters, as within a year, a lot can change. As well as to find out what you're working on professionally since we last interviewed you, too. The reason we aren't progressing is that, at this current moment, after reviewing your application. The team feel we wouldn't have a suited role for you. So we wouldn't want to waste your time!" He didn't mention that at any moment they wanted to "find out what you're working on professionally since we last interviewed". I would have focused on the things I have worked on in the last year if I had known it, and it wouldn't have been a waste of time. Anyway, it was not a good experience.

I was rejected after a first interview, which combined a talk about past experiences and some weird questions around programming language specifics, the stated reason was that I did not answer well enough the weird programming language questions.