Went through 4 stage tedious interview process. Round 1 was a discussion with one of the Engineering managers regarding my experience. Round 2 was a codility task to take home. Round 3 was a discussion with one of the Product Managers to determine if I was a good fit for the team Round 4 was a 90 minute round, 30 minutes to discuss the codility task and 60 minutes for a System design interview to bring a backend solution to life. This was combined with multiple prep and feedback calls with a member of the recruiting team. After investing so much time, in the end I was told that I had cleared all the rounds, but the role had lost budget and they couldn't proceed with hiring for the role. No apology offered. No respect for the time I invested on their super-long interview process. In fact the person communicating this was cheeky enough to say, we might come back if we get some more budget, but don't "wait" for us. I don't know what makes them think that a candidate would sit around waiting for a call back, as if this were the only company hiring Scala devs. I understand that it's a startup and changes like this could happen but would have appreciated if there was at least an apology offered for wasting my time. After every round I cleared, the feedback was given not immediately, but after 1-2 days. Bad approach of leaving the candidate hanging unnecessarily. On a side note, I was told if they regained their budget I would be able to skip all the rounds I'd already cleared (oh wow really? ) and go straight to - yeah you guessed it right - yet another round with someone higher up. Nope, not waiting, not interested.