I contacted JPL on a job posting for a Senior System Engineer in June of 2017 and heard nothing for a few weeks. After following up over email to see if there was any more info I could provide, I received a phone call the very next day from a member of HR. After a quick chat, a review of my resume, a follow up call was conducted with the hiring manager within a week. That went well and I was scheduled for an onsite interview in a few weeks time. As this is a government facility, some background checks were run, and once cleared I was set for a couple face-to-face interviews with the JPL team I would be working with. It all went well, and I was told they would follow up in a few days time. A week went by, then another. I followed up again and within a day got a phone call from HR. They were interested but there was a hiring freeze going on and they weren't sure if the job was still available. I was a little disappointed, but all and all I understood. It happens. They told me they were interested in hiring me, however, and that it might take some time. A month went by, then two, then three. I emailed monthly to stay in the loop and it was promised each time something was coming soon, but it never materialized. Summer turned to Fall, the Holiday season was in full swing and I figured I wouldn't hear from them before the new year. Luckily I had a job, and although I was actively looking to leave it, NASA was too tempting to blow off and I waited. That might have been dumb, the job may never have become available, but I had my hopes set on working at JPL. I'd wait a little while. December goes by, no word, I check in around January 15th and I get a call from a new HR person who said he'd be working with me now, and what were my salary requirements. I told him and he said he couldn't do that, although I had talked about these details during previous calls and I was never told it was a problem. I explained to him I've been waiting on word about this job for almost seven months, and my salary requirements aren't out of scope for the industry, nor for my experience. After some back and forth he said they could do it, but made it seem like this was going way above and beyond for me. He then asked me if I wanted the job, and if so he needed me to start in two weeks. Now... Again... It's been nearly seven months of back and forth and I needed time to inform my then current employer and get everything in order. I wasn't moving for the job, so it would be easy enough to get there in two weeks, but that seemed unreasonable especially after the back and forth of the interview and hiring process. I conceded at three weeks, ended up finishing my last day of work with my old employer on a Friday and starting orientation on Monday at JPL. For how slow they can move, they were sure in a hurry to get me in the door. I will say, after working for JPL for a while now, I can see why things took so long. Things don't move incredibly fast here, and the interview process with a bit of a precursor to how work is done on the Lab. I will say, though, had I been openly interviewing with other companies I wouldn't have been able to join JPL simply because of the time it took for this process to happen. That's a shame. I think JPL loses great talent routinely due to this slow hiring process and I can't really blame someone going to another sure thing when it's a lot of wait-wait-and-maybe from JPL. Still, there's nothing like getting that offer letter, after waiting so long, and telling all your friends, "Yeah, I'm going to NASA."