Application I applied online and a recruiter reached out to me two weeks later. I first had a quick phone interview with the Principal Recruiter and then a phone call with the hiring manager followed by a week-long programming assignment in Python/Django. I never used Django before, but the assignment was not really difficult and I learned something new. It also left a lot of room for creativity, which I enjoyed. I got invited for an onsite interview within a day of submitting the assignment. Interview The onsite interview started with the Director of Engineering, followed by the hiring manager. Totally loved talking to both of them. Then there were three technical interviews on a white board. One algorithm, one front-end focused and one - system design. I think I could have done a bit better in the algo one and was a bit confused by the last interviewer and what he wanted me to do. The front-end question was enjoyable and fun even though I'm more of a back-end engineer actually. Overall, I had a pretty awesome onsite experience, but communication with the recruiters afterwards felt like a nightmare. Post interview Couple days later I was asked to schedule a call with a Principal Recruiter. In the call the recruiter told me that they're still deciding and so far he is getting all positive feedback and that he might have an update in a couple of days. He also gave me his email in case I had a question, but I never got any reply to the email I sent him. Although I'm quite sure I typed the right one (he later on spelled it in a voicemail). Next call he left me a voicemail (I could not pick up the phone at that time) and said that they're still deciding and he'd reach out in a few days. Next time he called and gave me some standard phrases and said that they rejected me. I was sad, but the fact of a more personal rejection made it a thousand times worse for me. I'm not sure why they are doing it this way. Maybe in case of an offer a phone call feels nicer, but for a rejection - a phone call makes a candidate feel so much worse! Every time I get a templated rejection - I feel sad, but at the same time realize - ok, they have a template for this, I'm not the only one being rejected, this is not because they hated me specifically. When they tell you the bad news personally it feels... well personal. Not like you are one of many people who get rejected every day, but more like "you in particular are a loser" or "we did not like you specifically, not anybody else". I wish they were responsive to emails, too. And if there was a way to indicate communication preferences that would be super-awesome. But the fact that they called me three times was also pretty annoying. I get that it takes time, that's fine, take your time, guys. I can wait for a couple of weeks, no need to give me updates consisting of "no update yet" every other day. This is quite distracting and I felt like I was lead on even though I was trying to take my mind off and just patiently wait. Could it be that they were afraid to put this rejection in writing for some reason? I cannot imagine why, this would have been such a decent and respectful thing to do.