I was shortlisted through an employee referral, and the whole process took less than two weeks – pretty quick for a technical role. The first round was a brief 20-minute online chat with the line manager, mostly covering theory: ML algorithms (decision trees, random forests, etc.), DL models (RNNs, LSTMs, CNNs, Transformers), SQL (window functions, grouping), and RAG architectures. It was fairly easy, though a few questions (like precision vs. recall, F1 score) were easy to miss in preparation. The second round was an hour-long on-site interview focused on banking case studies (credit scoring, fraud detection, campaign optimisation). While some theory came up, most of it was about critical thinking and making the right assumptions. Knowing customer-facing products, user behaviour, and basics of finance (credit, interest, amortisation) helped a lot. The final round was a 30-minute HR call on behavioural fit, career goals, and salary. The HR team was very professional – they handled the salary conversation gracefully and were willing to share their offer first, which I appreciated (big plus for them).