To start, I was a referral and this interview happened months after I was referred because there was not a suitable position at the time. The first interview part was with the hiring manager. This was the standard get to know you and your past to see if you are a fit before moving onto the loop. This went as expected and all the normal questions were asked around management style, technical participation, etc. Once I passed that, I was setup for the interview loop. This looked as follows 45 minutes with someone from product 1 hour with someone higher up in engineering leadership 1 hour system design 1 hour technical credibility The Friday before the loop I was prepped by the recruiter who gave me the run down of exactly what I should expect and how to prepare. During that prep it sounded like I was going to be asked to do some leet coding. Two things I am up front about is I don't do coding interviews and my first version of any system design is something nobody sees because they are a brain dump and a mess. The recruiter knew this and I said if I had to leet code, I was going to back out of the process. I was assured that wasn't what was going to happen. Time for the interviews. Three out of the four interviews were not what I was prepped for. Interview 1: Spent 45 minutes with someone in product and I couldn't relate the questions to the principals the interview was supposed to uncover. I had prepped a few stories based on what I was told to expect and none of them fit. Unfortunately I was told later the interviewer does his own thing which to me sounds like they should be retrained or not part of the process. Principals Customer obsession with regards to b2b scenarios First principle thinker Have backbone, Do the right thing Interview 2: Spent 1 hour with a Sr engineering leader. This one was exactly what I was prepped for. The interviewer and I actually spent an extra 15 minutes on the call because it was going so well from both sides. Principals Attract, Hire, Fire, Lead and Grow a Team Deliver Results Earn trust of stakeholders, Bias for action Interview 3: 1 hour with Sr level engineer discussing system design. This was supposed to be around discussing system design and how I go about solving problems. First half was what was expected, then they pulled out the whiteboard tool. As I stated previously, my first version will not be great because it is more of a brain dump. So I made my way through it and on to the next. Principals Systems Design Iterative Problem Solving Build for the future Have ownership Interview 4: 1 hour with a sr level engineer. We started by discussing how I solve problems and write maintainable code, then came the leet coding session which I was told wasn't a thing. I almost bailed at that point based on principals, but since I was a referral, I didn't want to let my friend down. Made my way through and finished the loop. Principals Cross Domain Knowledge (websites, mobile apps) Algorithms, Patterns and Data Structures Writing Maintainable and Testable Code Deep Dive Earn trust of the team Feedback on the first interview was neutral. I was fine with that since the interviewer went way off script and I wasn't sure what he was trying to get at. Second interview I was told I had some of the highest rated feedback from that interviewer the recruiter ever saw. Cool, it was what was expected and I prepped well for it. Third and fourth interviews had the same feedback. Both had high ratings until I was forced to do the two things I said I wasn't going to be good at. Both of them felt I was a good fit until the second half when I had to whiteboard and leet code. I ended up with no offer because of this, but in the end, the red flags during the interview process ended up taking the sting away. If you can't prep a candidate correctly, then expect them to fail. I rather have no prep instead of wrong prep. In the end, it was not going to be a fit, but it was frustrating to waste time after explicitly stating I don't do certain things and being misled.