The recruiter was excellent throughout the process and very supportive, and up until the culture fit step, the experience was smooth and professional. However, things shifted afterward. The culture fit interview, which was supposed to be a formality, felt forced and unnecessarily tense. Then a last-minute step with the CTO was added, which was postponed several times. When it finally took place, the conversation felt judgmental and dismissive, with assumptions about my background and unfair criticism of my motivation. Despite doing well in the technical and earlier rounds, the process ended with rejection, leaving the impression that internal bias and shifting expectations outweighed actual performance.