Round #1 (Oct 2024) - Manager Screening This round went well, as the manager asked thoughtful and relevant questions. Round #2 (Nov 2024) - Technical Screening This round was also satisfactory since it was conducted by the engineers I would be working with. Round #3 (Nov 2024) - SVP IT Screening The Senior VP was very friendly and asked insightful questions. Round #4 (Dec 2024) - TCS Screening I felt this round was unnecessary because the primary objective of this role was to oversee and monitor TCS engineers' deployments. However, the TCS manager seemed more interested in asking irrelevant questions about tools, switch models, and vendor comparisons rather than focusing on network fundamentals. Such questions are typically more relevant for a Sales Engineer role. I suspect the TCS manager's intention was to gauge how strong a candidate I was because if someone with solid expertise were hired, the third-party contract with TCS might be at risk in the long term. A stronger in-house team could eventually handle deployments independently, potentially making TCS redundant. For this reason, I believe this round was unnecessary, especially since the internal engineering team had already approved me during the Technical Screening round.
