I initially met with the internal recruiter and had a great conversation around my experience and the role. The following interview was with the hiring manager where I again had a great conversation around my specific experience but further in depth. For the 3rd step, the requirement (surprisingly) was to use a free AWS account and complete a lengthy take-home project. I spent the majority of a Saturday completing the project and submitting it to the hiring manager via email. The following week, the scheduling coordinator (not the requirer) sent me a generic denial email mentioning that she enjoyed our conversation even though I do not recall ever having a conversation with her. This was concerning, especially because I dedicated 6 or more hours into a project with an instant rejection and no helpful context. The worse part was that I nailed the project and even utilized Spark and Glue, which were not a requirement but allowed me to defend future interview questions regarding scalability. I even emailed the hiring manager to ask why the process was haulted and to get feedback, but he ignored me. This was overall a terrible experience!