I interviewed for a senior position in a team in charge of tools for the migration to AWS. Before the interviews I explicitly asked if the interviews would be about engineering principles and background rather than specific knowledge of tools -- and they confirmed this. So I did the interviews, apparently passed all of them, but the team ultimately rejected me for a lack of knowledge and experience of their tools / stack (k8s, etc), despite having stated specific knowledge was not required (it was mentioned a "nice-to-have" in the job description). During the wash-up meeting, apparently the manager of another, sibling team joined, liked my profile and my interview outcomes and asked the recruiter if he could meet me for an informal chat. So the recruiter organized the call with me and this other team manager. The informal chat turned out to be 1h of behavioural + technical questions. Besides, I later came to know that the position would have been less senior and lesser in compensation than the one I applied for, and I would be reporting to the manager in Bangalore, with no one else of the team in Dublin. I politely declined the offer and went for another one I had. It was a pity as I felt I liked the team and I could make a significant contribution. Besides, I don't understand their gatekeeping and choosy stance on arbitrary technical grounds despite the positive interviews outcome. It doesn't seem to be warranted by what they do (it's not rocket science, and tools can be learned on the job), or by the company's overall financial state (badly hit by the pandemic, in need for a business model refresh).