I have 25+ years of engineering experience, something like 15+ on lead positions. Have a somewhat rare background - blend of network and software with a pinch of data / ML and DevOps. Several years with telecoms, several years in two big tech companies. Delivered many projects from scratch, was responsible for mentoring, product and project management, architecture, various testing and monitoring, maintenance. Got rejected twice without a chat. Used my connection to get referred. Got rejected without a chat again. Used my connection to ask a recruiter for a feedback, was promised it, waited several weeks for it, didn't get anything. Got to an event with Arista, talked to the recruiter, reminded about the feedback. Got a call later a week later. Was told that Arista was interested in C++ and, because my last C++ project was a part of Google Search 5 years ago, I was of little interest. It didn't matter that I had several years of C++ experience in two big tech companies. Didn't matter that once upon a time I had had no C++ experience and had learned the language (as any engineer is supposed to be able to do) enough to do my job for the companies. The rest of my engineering experience didn't matter. After I expressed my surprise, the recruiter reluctantly mentioned that Arista might test my C++ with a coding interview. Which is totally fine. I just can't understand why the first recruiter's thought was to filter me out simply because I didn't have C++ at my latest project. Still, it has been a couple of weeks with no updates from Arista. So that coding test might not even happen. But I have to thank the recruiter for talking to me. Companies rarely provide any feedback. The recruiter definitely didn't have to have that chat. So I am grateful for the conversation.