During the second interview, interviewer noted that the posted pay band was higher than what they were willing to pay. The interaction felt ingenuine, having provided misleading information on the job posting.

Do NOT apply to Clean Power Research unless you're willing to commit to ~10 hours of total interview length (4 total rounds, 4-hr block for final round) as well as several additional hours to prepare a 30+ minute presentation to present in front of the company... only to proceed to get ghosted for a week and a half until they finally reject you but only after prompting them for an update. In the end, the only reason they offer you is because they "found a person with better qualifications for the role", which is completely understandable... if the concern was addressed WAY earlier in the interview process instead of burning up a dozen hours of the interviewer's time. Interview process went a little like this - Phone screen Video interview w/ Product Manager Video interview w/ 2 PM's Video interview w/ SWE Manager and Account Exec, presentation, and ending with a video interview with the CEO Pretty basic questions throughout. At times it seemed as if I was pitching my current company more than they were pitching Clean Power Research. Each individual conversation was engaging and fun at times, but I found it interesting that because many of the engineers and PM's previously worked at Microsoft, they talked more about Microsoft than CPR. Overall not a convincing process, but since the industry and company mission was interesting and ethical, I wanted to continue in the interview process.