I applied online via Workable. I applied for the Senior Platform Engineer - Distributed Systems as it looked more interesting than the Cloud Infrastructure role. The first step was a 30 minute phone call with HR to discuss the role, background and salary expectation. This was a helpful discussion as I was unsure about which role would be best, I proceeded with the distributed systems role at this point. We also discussed salary, in which my expectations were fine, as I was told they pay within the top x percentile in London as well which was encouraging. The next step was a 60 minute VC with the CTO who was filling in for a platform engineer. We discussed my technical experience, and I explained one interesting project I had worked in recently which was a prepared beforehand. I enjoyed this interview, the CTO was very friendly and there was plenty of time for my questions at the end. I passed this and the next step was a 60 minute VC code review. The intention for this is to explain a codebase, some examples to choose from were Redis or HashiCorp Raft, though you could chose your own. I delayed this interview to give myself time to prepare, as the stated 3 hours is entirely inadequate for such complex and unfamiliar codebases. In the meantime I received an email that it was unlikely I would pass this, so was instead offered to switch to the Cloud infrastructure role which was closer to my skill set. This seemed reasonable to me as there's cross over anyway and there wouldn't have been any point in pursuing the other. This meant the next step was a final face to face 3 hour interview with the code review as one of the hours. The projects were different, related to AWS this time. This hour was a very enjoyable experience with 2 engineers, we went through the codebase, discussed it's purpose, structure and testing. The last hour was a culture interview with 2 product owners, this was also very pleasant, standard questions where they took notes on a form. The middle hour was billed as a technical discussion, with 2 engineers. It started with an open ended question about how you would deploy software. The rest was a fast paced, at times unpleasant, questioning of various technical subjects. Some questions I was asked were very specific to a piece of technology that I have only limited experience with, so simply said I couldn't answer these as I haven't worked with that. Although it started open ended, the interview became very narrow in scope by the end. I asked some questions about the role and the road map, which I now understood to be very narrow as well. Contrary to the other sessions, I didn't think the interviewers would be good to work with, they didn't seem open, collaborative or even friendly. There was a brief session with HR at the end as well for next steps and how I thought it went. I thought it went well, on balance. The communication from HR and the interview preparation material was very good at each step. A VC was set up for the feedback of the final interview with an engineering manager. The feedback I received was that they would like me to join, however I didn't have the required skills/experience for the senior role, specifically around a single piece of technology. In the end I met around 10 people who all should have read my CV, and no where does it mention this technology. I felt this was a total waste of my time and theirs, as this could have been picked up from the beginning. Next they offered me the level below senior but for the same team, at about £20K below my current salary, as they were still keen for me to join. I declined this as it was ridiculous, moreover it wasn't even close to the bottom end of the senior role which they disclosed to me in the beginning, due to what they described as they're bracketing and equal salaries. It would have been far better practice to simply decline the original role and leave it there. By far the worst experience of approximately 10 companies over a 3 month period. The salaries do not appear to be competitive in the slightest.