The interview process was two steps and honestly I think they just didn't like me as a person and it wasn't my actual technical skills. They're a small organization and they probably have a "culture fit" policy that they want to adhere to. The first part of the interview was a phone call that went over basic Java questions and some Spring. For the second part they had me do a take home assignment that consumed data from the SpaceX API. Again all simple stuff, I sent in the project completed before the deadline and they even asked me to make a private repo for them on Github, which I did. They sent out a rejection email and sited that "the competition was stiff ". After doing the project for FREE and wasting hours of my time on it, they provided NO feedback as to why I wasn't selected, something that could've been done in less than a 5 mins . Again my project the requirements and I did well on the first interview so I'm guessing they're shopping for people that they like and that your actual skill has less of an impact that you would think. I was actually willing to take a pay cut too, they only offer 70-90K for this role