The interviewing process starts quite strong, but slowly transit into something that I feel quite angry. 1st round with recruiter, standard background check. Very happy. 2nd round, phone interview with their lead data scientist. Machine learning / modeling questions, e.g. what are the assumptions for a linear regression. All questions are those you can expect for a data scientist position. Very happy discussion. Things are quite standard till here. The next day after the phone interview, I received a call from the recruiter saying they would like to invite me to an onsite. The transition started to happen when he said I will be considered for both a data scientist and a data engineer positions. I said why not, but made it clear that I still strongly prefer the data scientist position as this is where my passion is and where I want to build career. It is also very clear cuz I have PhD in Applied Math and have been working in modeling since graduation. He said no problem. 3rd round, the onsite. 4 back-to-back interviews. What starts to confuse is that all interviewers asked those questions you expect from a software developer position, such as how to build a system, what is heap, how to avoid dead lock, etc. For a data scientist role, really? There is zero machine learning, zero modeling questions at all. I write lots of code myself, so still manage to get most of the questions answered, and all white board python coding quick and correct without any hint from the interviewers. All interviewers agree with my codes. Everything went smoothly, and it is the best interview I've done for years. But again, this is a hardcore software developer interview without any data science related questions. I received an email from the recruiter a few days later saying they will pass, because one of the interviewer felt I was struggled with python coding. It is definitely not true, and honestly quite offensive because that interviewer only asked me one python coding question, and I wrote the code within 2 minutes without any flaw, and the interviewer were happy with my code! I emailed back saying this is not true, and asked for more details. Then I received an even more confusing email saying the interviewers think I'm a good 'engineer', but there's no good role for me. Hmm, so did they just interview me as a data engineer, not a data scientist, even though that's what I actually applied for and I made it clear multiple times that I want the data scientist position? That explains why there's no modeling / machine learning question at all during the onsite. Anyway, very disappointed with the process. If I know they will interview me as a data engineer, I wouldn't even go for the onsite. Pure waste of time.