The interview process included three rounds, excluding the initial phone screening. A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn, and after sharing my resume, we had a phone call to discuss my background, location, and salary expectations. They avoided disclosing their budget and soon scheduled a Level 1 technical interview. Surprisingly, the L1 round was shifted to a virtual Teams call. It began with questions about my profile and recent projects, followed by basic machine learning concepts, a riddle, and a short Python coding task. Right after the call, the recruiter informed me that I had progressed to the next round and asked me to attend the remaining interviews in person. They reiterated salary discussions again despite me already quoting a reasonable market rate, and still pushed for an in-person meeting, saying the remaining two rounds (managerial and HR) would be concluded on the same day. I visited their office, which was on the 4th floor. The workspace was in poor condition, lacking basic infrastructure and giving off a rundown appearance. The interviewer for the managerial round arrived late and asked a mix of project-specific and scenario-based questions on Generative AI and LLMs. However, once salary was brought up again, at the same rate I previously mentioned, his demeanor changed, and he quickly ended the session without further discussion. It was clear the company was heavily budget-constrained and relied mostly on open-source tools, with very low-scale projects that lacked innovation. After I left, I followed up with the recruiter, who ignored multiple calls. When he finally answered, he simply said I wasn’t selected and refused to give any specific reason. Despite promising to follow up by email, he never did. Overall, the experience was unprofessional. The company lacked transparency, structure, and the seriousness expected from a potential employer. I would advise against attending in-person interviews without clarity and would not recommend engaging with such recruiters or companies.