First up was the phone interview. This was a typical initial screen with a recruiter. It was pretty straightforward—they asked about my background, what kind of projects I’ve worked on, why I’m looking to move, and what I know about the company. It lasted about 30 minutes, and they mostly wanted to see if my experience aligned with the role and culture. Next was the coding interview. This one was done online via a shared coding editor with one of their engineers. I had to solve a couple of algorithmic problems—nothing too obscure, but needed to think on my feet. They were testing how I approached problems more than just getting the perfect solution, so I made sure to talk through my logic as I worked. Then came the second technical interview. This one dug deeper into system design. They asked me to design a scalable messaging system. It was whiteboard-style (well, virtual whiteboard), and I had to think through databases, APIs, scalability, failure handling—you name it. It felt more like a discussion, which I liked, but tested my architecture skills. The fourth round was the behavioral interview. This was with a senior manager, and it was all about team fit, communication, and handling conflict. Lots of "tell me about a time when..." questions. I made sure to highlight projects where I had leadership roles or resolved tricky team situations. STAR method came in super handy here. The last one was the lunch interview. Super chill compared to the others. I had lunch (virtually, actually) with a couple of engineers from the team. It was more about culture fit—they just wanted to get a sense of what I’m like as a person. We talked tech, side projects, and even some non-work stuff like hobbies and favorite coding memes.