Scale Machine Learning Engineer interview: coding round followed by ML theory

After speaking with a recruiter, I went through a compact sequence: a manager screen, a coding round, and a final discussion focused on machine learning theory. The process felt broad and deep at the same time, which made it difficult to approach as one straightforward type of interview. Even when I felt comfortable with the technical parts, the theory discussion kept bringing me back to fundamentals.

I signed an NDA, so I can't share the details of exactly what I worked on. The structure itself was clear and felt fairly high stakes. Compared with other ML interviews I had done, this one was less predictable, covered more areas, expected more accuracy, and left less room to improvise.

I didn't receive an offer. The breadth of the evaluation was what stressed me most.

Location: United States. Overall feedback: Neutral. Offer status: No offer.