I was approached by a recruiter for a senior software engineer position. I decided tat my current role was good, but I showed interest in breaking into a leadership role. (I have 10+ years of working as IC engineer). The recruiter comes up with a fresh job ad for engineering lead position which clearly states that the style and principles of leadership are more important than actual past experience. I think perhaps this could be an opportunity to break into such a role. Over the next few weeks I go through multiple meetings and exercises. The meetings are polite and mostly insightful. The questions are basic and routine. But the take home programming exercise was engaging and fun. I thought every thing went well. In the end I am met with an unexpected rejection. The original recruiter's contract had expired. When I probe I am told that I didn't have the experience they were looking for (I feel that they never knew what they were looking for) So for senior roles I would advise to probe early since as a young startup their HR process is like a dumpster fire.