Zipline Software Engineer: take-home, system design, and a month-long ghosting

The process took longer than I expected, although it started out feeling genuinely fulfilling. I went through six stages overall: a recruiter call, a hiring manager screen, a take-home assessment, a technical interview connected to the assessment, a system design interview, and a product prioritization conversation. The later rounds also included a culture-fit discussion and an interview with a VP of Engineering.

The part that threw me off was the scheduling. The final interviews were planned and then canceled at the last minute. After that, I was essentially ghosted for close to a month. Only later was I told that the position had been closed. The earlier rounds had felt coherent and high signal, so the lack of communication at the end left a very sour feeling. I had invested a lot of momentum in the process, and it simply stopped.

Location: San Francisco, CA. Overall feedback: Negative. Offer status: No offer.