Overall, the interview process itself was great. Started with the recruiter, quickly moved on to three additional rounds. Within an hour of each interview I had the next one lined up. In the final interview, the interviewer used language like "this is for formality", "the team really likes you and feels you'll be a good fit", "we'll be in touch on final steps", and then three days later the initial recruiter said they went with "another candidate who has experience closer to our current needs." I reached out for feedback on how I could improve, and one of the other people I interviewed with told me "We have decided to pause hiring at this level." Would have appreciated more transparency in the interviewing process.