Interviewed for an AI / workflow engineering related role through a vendor pipeline. The recruiter initially asked whether I was comfortable with coding rounds, which I said was totally fine. I then followed up to understand the coding format (e.g. LeetCode, live debugging, or system implementation), but unfortunately never received any clarification before the interview. During the interview itself, there were 3 interviewers, and 2 of them were not even listed in the Teams invite. None of the interviewers had their cameras on, while I was expected to keep mine on. There was also no self-introduction from the panel, which made the interaction feel quite impersonal. The biggest challenge was the communication style: one interviewer tended to ask 4–5 questions in one long sequence without natural pauses, which made it difficult to address each point clearly or go deeper into technical details. My background is stronger in system design narratives and workflow reasoning, so this format made it hard to properly explain trade-offs, architecture layers, and implementation details. I want to be fair — the interviewers were not rude. However, the communication style and overall interview setup did not match the kind of technical discussion where I can best demonstrate my strengths, so I decided not to continue further in the process.

The interview process began with an HR screen, which focused on my background, career goals, and salary expectations. Following the initial screen, I had three separate technical interviews with different engineers from the team. These technical rounds covered machine learning fundamentals, deep learning algorithms, and hands-on coding challenges related to model optimization. The final stage was a virtual on-site loop consisting of a System Design interview and a behavioral interview with the Hiring Manager. The overall process took about four weeks to complete.