I applied online in early August 2024 and received an email from a recruiter in December for a screening call. The recruiter explained that the first round would be a 30‑minute conversation with the hiring manager to discuss my background and the role, followed by a one‑hour panel interview. However, the actual interview experience was very different from what was described. The hiring manager began immediately with, “Hi, can you explain your experience with AWS?” and proceeded to ask deep‑dive AWS engineer/architect‑level questions. There was no introduction to the program, no overview of the role, and no opportunity to discuss my background. When I politely asked whether this interview was indeed for the SDET position, since none of the questions were related to testing or the job description the hiring manager responded that at FINRA “everyone is an engineer” and they expect candidates to be hands‑on in everything. In the last three minutes of the interview, he asked me to open Notepad, share my screen, and write a Java program. While I was still writing the code, he abruptly ended the interview, saying he needed to go. I have conducted hundreds of interviews myself over my 20‑year IT career, and I have never experienced an interview structured this way. The questions did not align with the job description, the expectations were unclear, and the interaction felt more like an attempt to screen out candidates to meet internal audit requirements rather than evaluate them fairly. A well‑run interview should assess relevant skills and give candidates a clear understanding of the role, which did not happen here. Despite answering about 90% of the AWS questions correctly, the interview still felt misaligned with the role. After the interview, I did not receive any follow‑up communication. The recruiter did not respond to emails, and no rejection notice was sent. About a month later, the career portal simply updated the status to ‘application closed.