The interview process was very long. It took over 2 months involving 5 interviews (2 technical, 2 cultural, 1 other), 10+ emails, and 5 additional phone/video calls.
At first, the company seemed very exciting and attractive. The culture and passion of the company was contagious. They expressed how the company has a lot of trust in its employees as expressed by their unlimited vacation, benefits package, work-lifestyle balance measures, and remote working approach. It seemed like an ideal job, and the interviewers said that I was a very strong candidate.
Despite asking multiple times, I never received a clear answer on the next step or the number of steps required for the process. While this was annoying, the team was passionate and talented. They continued to be disorganized by not bringing in the right interviewers at the right moment or booking interviews (multiple times) during periods where stated my unavailability.
During the fifth interview, the tone changed dramatically. The interviewer (who was supposed to at one of the two technical interviews) brought a very different tone from the previous four. She interrupted me and asked questions that I had already answered. It was very different from the fun, passionate, collaborative discussions had during the first four interviews.
It was only after the fifth interview that they imposed a 50% travel requirement over the duration of the program (multiple years) as a condition to providing an offer. There were no travel requirements listed in the job application. While I said I was open to traveling, there was absolutely no mention of the required frequency of travel during the interview process. The requirements contradicted information from the first four interviews, where numerous interviewers described employees' freedom to work remotely. I was able to make a minor change to the travel requirement to see the offer. Knowing the risk, I tried having an open, honest discussion about all of the implications (work-lifestyle balance, residency, healthcare, the company culture, etc.) and negotiating the updated travel requirement further.
They quickly rescinded the offer and curtly ended the process.