I applied for a Solutions Architect Role based in Singapore. Had the initial HR call , the usual blah blah. After which is when the real process started. Round 2 : Discussion with the Solutions Architecture Lead. It was a generic conversation about experience and what the company is attempting to do etc. A lot of times the word “hustle” was thrown around. Round 3 : A case study was asked to be done , which includes coming up with an Architecture , use case diagrams and explanations. The optional part was to use their set of APIs to build a prototype which I didn’t do. I provided them a decent enough document. A few days later , they actually asked me to modify the document with some suggestions ! Round 4 : Case Study Presentation with the Lead Architect + Product Owner where I had to “present” my case study and answer questions etc. Round 5 : Tech Design. Discussion around a hypothetical system. Round 6 : “Culture Fit Round” with the CTO. Was asked a few scenario based questions etc. This process went on for more than a month. Later I get the usual template email about how they were impressed by my tech skills, but they won’t be offering at this stage. Fine , these things happen. I was annoyed by the fact that the company takes all these rounds to figure out I’m not the right fit ? If it takes 5 Interviews + 1 Case study to judge a candidate it’s a stupid system. It’s not even close to being a big tech company to have such a long interview process. About the company - they don’t really have a product as yet. They’re still testing a few ideas. So it’s not even like they’re market leaders in their domain and want to find the best folks. I would suggest to avoid this company at all costs.

- Rather a full stack developer role than a solutions architect role. Requires hands-on systems design as well as CI/CD and system scaling skills along with sales and negotiations experience. - Interviewers lack the skills to drive interviews in a structured format. Be prepared to get pulled in all directions and lose your thoughts. - Prepare for plenty of "tell me about a time" questions in technical rounds as well. - No matter what kind of data you have at hand, NoSQL is always the right answer. Because apparently, SQL is not scalable.