Got through to the technical take-home test and spent the best part of a week working on it. Once it had been submitted I was told that the test was great but due to not having security experience they wouldn't take it further. There was no mention prior of my security background.

In the first instance a recruiter and I had a phone interview call. He was very professional and asked me questions like "what about Starling appeals to you?" I then met with the engineering lead over a video call. He was extremely polite and accepting. He did not ask the usual cliche questions. He asked me why I made certain job transition choices. Anything I said, he was taking into quiet consideration. Overall, he treated me with respect and progressed me onto the next round. The next round was a take-home test using their APIs. Bog-standard stuff. After submitting that, I got a phone call from the recruiter saying they have rejected me based on my test. Very pleased that they gave feedback. They were extremely nitpicky about my code and some stuff like, "too many extension functions" was a bit ridiculous. However, at least they gave proper feedback! My improvements to Starling would be to have more team members join the interview call.