The interview process started with the usual recruiter call (Note: my application went through a referral). It went ok, and the recruiter was nice. Following this, an interview with the hiring manager was set up, which also went well. It was a nice conversation regarding my work experience and such. Then comes the dreaded take-home assignment. From what I can gather, I did a pretty good job and followed all the instructions. I got a call for the next interview where they would discuss the assignment as well as my "strong opinions on frameworks and methodologies" (vague at best but ok). This interview starts with red flags. The interviewers do not seem interested in the least. There was hardly any discussion on the take-home assignment other than "what could you have done differently". They didn't even bother to tell me if my solution was correct, what I did well or any such thing. It was pretty clear that no one has gone through my solution (perhaps a quick glance of 5 seconds, and I doubt even that). Then came the "strong opinions" part which was rather bizarre. The interviewers were not participative, let alone friendly, and it was like an exam where you're asked a theoretical question and you just vomit the answer. The very next day I get an invitation for an "update call" from the recruiter. It was clear what it meant but I was curious about the feedback. And the feedback was "we are looking for some specialist knowledge which you don't have and therefore we won't be moving forward, we appreciate you did the assignment". LOL. And they had to set up a call for this!! There are couple of issues here - 1) The last interview was completely misleading as there was little to no discussion about the take-home assignment and I was told that it would be the major chunk of the interview. Like I said earlier, it was pretty clear that no one had even gone through my solution as they probably couldn't care less! 2) If this "specialist knowledge" was so crucial to the role, why wasn't it communicated and tested before giving the take-home assignment?! Why waste the candidate's precious time and effort, only to humiliate them in the end? There was no connection between the take-home and this "specialist knowledge" interview so there was no good reason to tie them together. These days the candidates are bombarded with take-home tests, and we have to put in a lot of time and effort in doing them only to be either ghosted or rejected without any feedback. It's amazing. But that's how the world works, I guess. Enjoy!