The HR generalists don't maintain contact with you and are obviously going through a scripted process without any adaptive thinking. Hiring managers reached out to apologize about the overly redundant and unclear expectations for the role. Basically, all of these positions had a copy/paste approach applied to the job descriptions. The actual roles were not even designed for true data engineering.

The interview process with Travelers started in November and involved four to five rounds. I had the opportunity to speak with most of the team members, covering both technical (theory-based, no coding) and behavioral questions. One of the aspects I appreciated the most was the conversational style of the interviews. The interviewers made the discussions comfortable and engaging, and what stood out to me was how the panel guided candidates toward the right answers respectfully, rather than just expecting immediate perfect responses. For the Data Engineer position, the key topics covered included Data Pipelines and Data Governance. Surprisingly, I felt very calm and less anxious compared to other interviews I’ve had. The overall experience was positive and well-structured, making it an enjoyable process.

I had a phone screen, two separate 30 min zoom meetings with the hiring managers, and a 60 minute long technical style panel interview. Each interviewer came prepared to the interview and asked specific questions about my resume. Everyone was very friendly and knowledgeable about the industry.