This was definitely an interesting interview process. My first interview was with a recruiter who reached out to me via email about two weeks following my application through Linkedin. My first round was a call with the recruiter, which was standard and just trying to get an idea of my background and what I was looking for. I was then handed off to the hiring manager for the role who was based in the China office. Interviewer was on time, however, the interview was supposed to go 30 minutes and went nearly two hours because the interviewer wanted to dive into the role I applied for but also another related role that he thought fit well with my background. He was very blunt about saying that he didn't think some of my answers were what he was looking for, and that perhaps I wasn't the best fit for the role. I assumed after that conversation that I wouldn't hear about a subsequent interview, which I was ok with, but I did about an hour later and it was scheduled for the following day. My following interview was with the Head of Marketing above the hiring manager for the role, who was located in Mountain View. She asked a lot of the same questions as the first interviewer, but it was not conversational - very to the point and felt more like an interrogation. She started to warm up a bit at the end, I think after she realized I actually did have an appropriate background for what she was looking for, but I wish she was conversational from the beginning because I didn't get a good sense of her as a leader on the team. Again, I had a sense I would not be moved forward, but about 10 minutes after that interview I was told I was being scheduled for another interview two days following. At this time I was interviewing for a few other companies that had panel round interviews, so I wanted to understand what the process looked like (I hadn't been given the overview from the recruiter, and I kept being passed off from individual to individual with only a little bit of context). I emailed the recruiter who told me that the next interview I was scheduled for was my last, and after that I would be extended an offer or not. The final interview went well, also less of a conversation and more to the point, but I thought that interviewer was friendlier than the first two (though I knew this was the one person I wouldn't actually work with if I came onto the team). Ultimately, I didn't feel I had cultivated a strong relationship with anyone on the team but I moved forward because I thought the role and potential upside of being at Tik Tok was interesting. After that final round I had a call with the recruiter who asked about my compensation requirements and start date. This was on a Friday, and we connected again the following Wednesday where she told me I had gotten the job and offered me an extremely compelling salary (well over 40k what I had asked for, not including an incredible bonus structure and a fair amount of high value equity). I was pretty much floored, because I didn't think the interviewers liked me that much, and I had anticipated the salary to be much lower. Though the compensation would have been virtual unbeatable, I had to think holistically about what I wanted and this team seemed a little all over the place. Plus, the China hours were not appealing to me as someone who was coming from a toxic work environment and was really looking for a positive life work balance for the sake of my mental health. I am grateful for the experience and for the offer - there is certainly a lot of opportunity (monetary and otherwise) on this team and within the company, but you need to do what is best for you, and I went with an offer that was a bit lower but offered an amazing team that I felt I really connected with, and had a big emphasis on mental health and growing in the right direction for you.