Had a few initial calls, then was assigned homework that is way too long for even a director level role. I've done assignments for at least 5 other top tech companies over the years and this was easily 3X more work than the next one I did. I put a ton into any assignment, but I truly don't believe that a 22-part assignment that calls for Gantt charts, org charts, market research, financial model, cost-benefit analysis, data analysis is required to tell if someone is a good fit. This amount of work would typically be done over about 3 weeks when you're a full-time employee. I had chosen not to believe that this was fishing for "free work" because while I believe I had shared great content, none of this should be truly news for a company at this stage. But after going through the process, I have a sense that the company certainly isn't as put together operationally as it seems on the outside so they would definitely benefit from the information I shared. The team I met was friendly and had pretty good experience, and I had pretty good conversations with them. I actually believed that I might have been happy working with them, so my sense is that the perceived dysfunction is more around how there might be a lack of thoughtfulness in which they manage and plan operations. I passed the final round and spoke with one of the co-founders after that. Given all that and numerous verbal confirmations that this was a good fit, I was fairly sure I would get an offer, but due to sudden organizational changes that I prefer not to share in detail, I received a call saying I did not. To be honest it's difficult to tell what happened there, but I don't think that this whole process was handled well. It's clear that the company is in flux right now, and due to a void in leadership at the top, they are trying to fill a few roles at the manager and director level. It's hard not to feel like I dodged a bullet here, and I'd caution anyone who is interested to dig deep, and figure out what's happening (without being afraid of affecting your chances, because isn't everyone mindful of coming across too skeptical?), and decide for yourself if this whole situation is worth about 50 hours of your time. I'm not kidding - between all the calls, travel to SF and the assignment, this definitely took up that amount of time. I don't usually write about my interview experiences, but this was particularly poorly handled and I think others deserve to know what they're getting into.