Initially, I was contacted by a recruiter for the position. I was told that they are only looking for a UI/UX manager. Understanding that they could be probably looking for a manager for frontend web development team, I told them that I don't have hands-on experience in web technologies as the primary team I was managing is on a desktop application development.
But she said they are only looking for UI/UX.
I was shortlisted for a telephonic interview. Around 50 minutes of the telephonic interview was primarily on leadership and management question, which I did pretty well.
After a week, they called in for a F2F. They told me that there will be a technical round. The first round of technical interview was purely on system design and current projects I've worked on. I could pretty much answer most of the technical questions.
In the second round, one guy started with the question "how do you design Twitter?". I was baffled at such a question.
I felt totally out of place having me ask such a question, but I still tried my best to answer it within my knowledge of web technologies.
After that question, he was not further interested nor giving me any eye contact. Rest of the interview was a mere ritual. It's pathetic for me to go through such an interview experience.
Interviewers are not properly trained and have extremely poor soft skills to manage the interview.
I'm not a system architect neither that's not what I'm pursuing.
I strongly believe a candidate of managerial experience shouldn't be called for a technical interview until you see a proper fitment for the position and technically matching what you are actually looking for. Spending time, energy and taking leave to reach the F2F interview to find out you are looking for a totally different role.