After the referral, I was called in for an interview within the week. Had a 1:1 interview with the section manager, then a 1:1 interview with a tech lead. Both asked standard interview questions, and there were no technical questions asked at all (besides things like "do you know about xxxx?"). The interviews took about 1.5 hours. I heard from my referrer that both people were impressed with me, and asked HR to start the hiring process. This is where things went sour: HR dragged their feet for 2.5 months, coming up with many different lame excuses, such as not being able to verify a job I had even though I provided a name and contact number. I'm not sure why they were doing this, but it was definitely beyond frustrating. Finally an upper manager got involved, and within a week I was given the job.