The interview was set up by a recruiter, and she did everything to make it work (as is their advantage). I had a panel of people from various departments who interviewed (the hiring manager, the R&D Director, the local DBA and also the Cloud Infrastructure manager). They were really cordial and forthcoming (that also gave me false hopes...). I left home very satisfied, but was surprised to hear that I was not hired! The recruiter gave me vague answers when I asked the reason for the rejection...
Anyway, it is a good experience in itself to see/interact/understand personnel from different walks of life...