Disappointing. The process started with an initial call with the recruiter, then a standard STAR interview with a manager, followed by a take-home exercise and a live coding/review session. The take-home exercise is quite heavy. Too many requirements for the time they suggest. They recommend spending no more than 6 hours, but realistically, to deliver a strong or even decent result, you’d need at least 10-12 hours. The biggest letdown was the live coding interview. In my case, they said my take-home was so good they didn’t have any questions about it. That was nice. Then came a quick 10-15 minute round of iOS questions, which was actually very enjoyable, the interviewers were engaged and asked great questions. But right after that, we jumped straight into a string manipulation problem, LeetCode-style, but simpler. The interviewers were very kind, but I didn’t finish the exercise, though I was close. The feedback I got was along the lines of: “Everything was good, but you didn’t finish the exercise.” I get it, but it’s disappointing, especially given how strong my take-home and iOS answers were. It’s clear they value the algorithmic part the most. I had hoped they’d look at the bigger picture and appreciate the strengths I showed in other areas. I thought Proton was different in this aspect.