Entire process took over 6 weeks.
I applied online for this position and was contacted by a recruiter about a week and a half later inviting me to a phone screen. Phone screen was 30 minutes and pretty standard, recruiter said she would pass my information on to the hiring manager and let me know if there was a request for an interview. Initial turnaround was very quick, I was told same day as the phone screen that the hiring manager had requested an interview, 45 minutes, however no information was given of how to prepare.
After this round I was scheduled for a 3rd round, 45 minutes with a peer of the hiring manager. Once again, I was given no information of how to prepare.
Shortly after this, I was contacted that I had been selected for a final round panel interview which comprised of 6 1 hour interviews. Once again, I was not given information of how to prepare for these interviews and had to reach out separately requesting it.
I had a great experience during the panel itself. Every person I talked to was very easy to get along with and I didn't get any negative feelings from a single person or interaction. It made me excited about the job and I felt like it was a good fit. I was told this panel interview was modeled after similar panel/loops at the big tech companies, and was also advised that I would hear the panel's decision within a few business days. I have looped with big tech companies previously so I thought it was a bit strange that I was given no interview prep information (like other companies had done) but did not give it much of a second thought at the time.
After 4 business days of silence, I reached out to the recruiter for an update and was told I'd hear back by EOD the next day. I did not hear anything the next day, and waited 2 more subsequent business days after that to reach out again. The recruiter responded that I would hear the next day, with a smiley face emoji in the response. Perhaps reading too much into it, I was excited by the emoji and thought it may be an offer. However, once again, I did not hear the next day.
I did hear the day after that, via email at 5 am that I had not been selected and that they were moving forward with another candidate, with extremely minimal feedback as to why. I found this very frustrating and is ultimately why I am giving a negative review for this entire experience. If it was going to be a rejection email, not a phone call, it is confusing that the feedback was not provided in a timely manner. The email was extremely short and could not have taken more than 5 minutes to write. Additionally, it is very disrespectful to be informed of a rejection via email after spending so many hours interviewing and countless hours preparing for the interviews. This is not the process that other tech companies follow to give an answer to potential candidates, so I found that very strange considering I was told explicitly that this was modeled after other tech companies. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the desired recruiting process by the team and the actual recruiting process. In total it took 2 weeks and 10 business days to get a response instead of "a few days".
I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to interview and of course respect the final decision, but the communication during the process and of the final decision was handled extremely poorly by the recruiter.