I applied for a QA Engineer role as an international candidate. I was genuinely excited about the opportunity the role looked promising, the company seemed to value diverse talent and the company values resonated with my own. Unfortunately, the interview process was a fairly disorganized experienced. I applied for a QA Engineer position as an international candidate. The initial coding challenge was a LeetCode-style problem involving a fictional Martian calendar system. It was a medium challenge. After completing the challenge, I was invited to a second-stage interview that was described as a screen-share coding test focused on DSA. I experienced some scheduling issues at this stage as interviews are conducted in JST times and I'm in the UK with a full time job. Despite being accomodating in my schedule there were still issues such as being given proposed times only to be withdrawn later the same day after accepting. I eventually interviewed at 2am local time to accommodate the time difference. When the interview began, it turned out not to be a coding assessment at all, but a more traditional conversation focusing on my background and experience. While the interviewer was polite and professional, there seemed to be a disconnect regarding the stage I was at in the process, which led to some confusion. I followed up after the interview to express appreciation and to clarify the mismatch in interview expectations. Less than 24 hours later I received a generic rejection email that didn’t acknowledge anything about where I was in the process saying "we are unable to select every candidate for an interview" despite interviewing 24 hours prior. I did contact them thanking them but gave feedback on my experience with the process. To the company's credit they did later reach out with a personal apology, acknowledging the situation and expressing a commitment to improving their recruitment process. Overall, there was clear interest in hiring international candidates, and I appreciated the eventual transparency and professionalism. I hope they continue to refine the candidate experience going forward.