PRO: There will be an initial screen with the ML Engineer. This is a very relaxed and fun conversation. CON: The next step will be presenting a PowerPoint on something you built to the CTO. These things are HUGE time sinks, so against my better judgment I said yes.. The only requirements are: (1) the topic must be preapproved, (2) the slide deck must be sent at least 24 hours before the interview, so they can review the deck and prepare questions. I sent over an idea for a presentation about a project using Google BERT. This was NOT the most recent project. I did it right after BERT came out (5 years ago).. and told them this!! This project was really fun and perfectly encapsulates zero to one deployments. The CTO approved the topic. I also sent the slide deck the day before the interview (as requested), but the interview got rescheduled for another 10 days out. So.. The CTO had a total of 11 days to review the slide deck. The interview – There were 21 slides. The CTO had almost 2 weeks to prepare for this meeting but was unable to find 10 min in his schedule to preview the deck. So... The CTO proceeded to interrupt me on every slide, impatiently asking multiple questions that were easily answered 1 or 2 slides ahead. I tried to diffuse this aggressiveness by politely asking the CTO to just go with the flow and that all his questions would be answered but he continued to punish me for his lack of preparation. Remember.. that the CTO had almost 2 weeks to preview the deck! Here’s the kicker.. I finally get to the last slide when.. The CTO says that he doesn’t like the topic and.. that I should have done something more recent. Haha.. How do you nicely say in an interview that YOU (The CTO) approved the topic!! So.. The CTO wants me to magically pivot and talk about my recent projects after hammering me for 40 minutes. I politely told the CTO that my present company is in Stealth Mode and that I have signed an NDA which means.. I can only talk about that particular role in very broad generalities to protect IP. The CTO kept asking detailed probing questions about my current employer. I had to very politely explain the concept of NDAs (again) and let him know that if the companies were reversed I wouldn’t tell anyone about team size or product roadmaps for his company. I’m not sure if he understood because he just got more and more frustrated. Summary – Feel free to interview with the CTO at Assured if you enjoy wasting several hours preparing a PowerPoint for a topic that is preapproved (but then magically not)… only to be constantly interrupted.. and hammered with pointless questions (that are actually answered in your deck).. and then be forced to repeatedly (and politely) state that you are not going to violate the NDA with your current company.. only to be ghosted by Assured without even getting the “Hey thanks for playing, try again sometime..” rejection letter. This is my honest personal interview experience. Would you want to work for this company?