Recruiter contacted through Linkedin contacts - forwarded resume which was put up in the list and selected by Engineering Team. The team members contact directly and there was no HR/recruiter intervention in the whole process - liked it. Phone screen was about basic networking and testing methodology concepts. Was selected for onsite interview. Onsite interview was taken by 3 senior engineers all sitting together in the same room - largely divided into two parts : first part was about debugging a customer field scenario for a Networking system test bug - along with clarifying protocol concepts as I debugged. The second part is about a switch performance issue debugging in a test/lab environment. Did well in both and the feedback was given instantly. Manager contacted few days later and called for a talk - took about 1.5 hours - asked everything about views about teamwork, projects I worked on, about job role and fitment etc. Asked about 5 references including past supervisors - gave them all. All were contacted between 2 to 5 days. All positive so far - and here comes a frustrating wait for 2 weeks+ for "obtaining offer approval". After 2 weeks and repeated email, got the shocker email that "unfortunately no offer can be made at this point". Very disappointed - should have been upfront if there was a concern about paying higher salary or if there has been a hiring freeze etc.

The first round consisted of an aptitude and technical MCQ assessment covering output-based questions, DCN, OOPs, and Operating Systems, followed by an interview round. However, the overall process honestly felt quite biased. Our university has two colleges, yet most of the shortlisted candidates were from only one of them, while students from the other college barely got any opportunity despite having strong technical profiles and relevant skills. There were also strong rumours circulating that the selections had already been informally decided beforehand by seniors, which made the initial round feel more like a formality rather than a genuine evaluation process. It was disappointing because many capable students who could have been strong contenders for the role were never really given a fair chance to compete or properly showcase their abilities. The opportunity itself was definitely attractive, especially with the ₹60,000 stipend and the ₹50,000 joining bonus offered by Arista Networks.