The interview process consisted of an initial phone screening with the HR recruiter, a Zoom interview with the hiring manager, and a presentation about a major project I'd led at a previous job to a 5-person panel interview that included: the same hiring manager, the Director of Growth Marketing, and the CMO plus the tech stack manager and data analyst for the team I'd be joining. Then I was moved forward to three 30-minute interviews with the same director and tech stack manager from the panel plus the Director of Brand and Creative. I was then moved on to three more 30 minute interviews with the Chief People Officer, CEO, and the CMO (again) in person at their office in Austin. So nine distinct interviews in total, though the recruiter downplayed this by referring to them as 4-5 "rounds." This was all for an independent contributor role with no direct reports for what was essentially my previous job at a very similarly-sized company. It was so similar they even used many of the same tools and were facing the same challenges I had previously dealt with, to the point that the martech manager told me "it's like you've already been working here" in our interview. I received similar positive feedback from practically every person I spoke with, starting with the recruiter, who explicitly told me after speaking with me in the initial screening that I sounded experienced enough for the role that there was a possibility I might even be able to start at the pay band above the one pegged to the role if I were hired. The Director of Growth Marketing gave feedback relayed to me by the recruiter that "I exceeded her expectations" during our interview. The Director of Brand and Creative told me during our conversation that I had some unique secondary skills that would be useful for their content marketing strategy. And the CEO himself said he'd "put in a good word for me" while shaking my hand after our interview. At no point did it seem like the interviewers had strong doubts, and they put me through to the end of the process, so I had every reason to think I would get the job. At the end, though, the recruiter told me they went with another candidate who was "more experienced," which I guess they needed 9 interviews to discern instead of establishing that from the beginning. To Rev's credit, the recruiter was extremely communicative, and the process moved forward at a steady pace across 4 weeks. Everyone I met was a pleasure to connect with, with the slight exception of the Chief People Officer, who was ostensibly gauging candidates for "culture fit" (at the very end of the process) and avoided eye contact while seeming bored, wrapping up our conversation 10 minutes early. I was genuinely looking forward to working with everyone I had met, and the CEO seems like a decent, smart guy with a good plan for his business. However, this many interviews makes the company appear indecisive and wastes everyone's time. I found out on LinkedIn shortly after that the candidate they hired has a shorter work history than me and also wins big on the "diversity" checkboxes corporate America is obsessed with these days, so all else being equal, I now have serious doubts about how much of a chance I ever actually had.