Contacted by headhunter over LinkedIn. After quick call to understand my background he passed my resume to hiring manager.
1. 45 min call with hiring manager to understand my experience and background and at same time share the job role. All seemed nice and role aligned with my experience and interest.
2. An hour long pair programing interview with Engineering Manager. To my surprise someone junior from development team with same last name as interviewer's showed up during interview. After initial conversation which was dry we did one coding exercise. I completed and passed the test cases and asked if he is expecting something more to which he seemed quite happy with my work.
Three days after I receive the call from headhunter and to my surprise they rejection with reason 'I didn't do great in coding'. The feedback I got was - 'We are looking someone with 6-8 years of software engineering work and wanted to move into data'.
Giving less experienced employee chance to interview is good but if giving him complete authority to judge a senior candidate just based on 1 coding problem gives clear understanding that their interview process is not structured.