Airwallex Software Engineer Interview Experience: CTO rejection after full loop

I completed the full Software Engineer loop, which ended with the CTO. After the recruiter conversation, I had live coding, system design, and behavioral rounds. They were standard and aligned with the role.

The CTO round did not feel like a fresh evaluation. He repeated many of the questions that had come up earlier with a senior director in the behavioral discussion. Along with lower-level technical questions, including how I would model a database, the final stage felt as though he had already made up his mind.

The previous three interviewers had given positive signals, but the CTO decided I was not a good fit. I did not get an offer and felt frustrated because the earlier work seemed to stop mattering at that final choke point.

Location: Vietnam. Overall feedback: negative. Offer status: no offer.