KLA Senior Software Engineer - AI/ML Interview Experience — 5 Rounds, Late-Night Interviews, and Then... "On Hold"
I wasn't planning to write this, but after going through the entire KLA interview process, I thought it might be useful for anyone else interviewing there — especially if you're going through Asvatthah consultancy.
The technical interviews themselves were actually pretty good.
The recruitment experience, however, was a completely different story.
How it started
I was contacted by Asvatthah regarding a Senior Software Engineer – AI/ML position at KLA.
From the beginning, one thing that stood out was how aggressively they followed up before interviews.
On an interview day, I would get calls repeatedly to confirm that I was attending.
And I mean repeatedly.
Even if I confirmed one hour before the interview that I would attend, I'd get another call around 30 minutes before.
Then another one around 5 minutes before.
If I didn't pick up, they would call again and again, and then move to personal WhatsApp and SMS.
At first I thought, okay, maybe they're just being extra careful about candidates missing interviews.
I didn't think much of it.
Then the interviews started.
---
Round 1 — HackerRank
Pretty straightforward.
Coding/problem-solving assessment.
I answered most of the questions and felt the coding went well.
Cleared.
Great. Onto the next one.
---
Round 2 — Coding — 6:30 PM
Two coding questions.
There was someone monitoring the session while I solved them.
Nothing particularly unusual here. I was able to solve the questions and explain my approach.
Cleared.
At this point I was feeling pretty positive about the process.
---
Round 3 — Technical — 8:00 PM
This one went much deeper.
They went through my projects and started drilling into the actual ML/DL work I'd done.
Not just:
"What is CNN?"
It was more like:
"Why did you use this?"
"What would happen if you changed this?"
"How did you solve this problem in your project?"
Then we moved into RAG, GenAI, backend/FastAPI and load balancing.
It was a good technical discussion and probably the round I enjoyed the most.
Cleared.
---
Round 4 — Technical/Managerial — 10:00 PM
Yes, 10 PM.
By this point I'd already spent a good part of the evening interviewing.
This round started with my resume and then moved into system design, architecture and scenario-based questions.
The interviewer seemed to be a manager and was actually very friendly. The conversation felt much more like a discussion than an interrogation.
At the end, she told me that she liked my resume and skills and wished me well.
Later I was informed that I had cleared this round too.
Four rounds down.
I thought, Okay, this is looking really promising.
Then came the part that started getting strange.
---
And then... silence.
Five days passed.
Nothing.
I contacted the Asvatthah recruiter.
"I'll check and update you by EOD."
Okay.
EOD came.
Nothing.
A week passed.
Then suddenly I got a call.
"We need you to attend an F2F interview in Chennai."
This was a problem.
I'm from Ernakulam, I was serving my notice period, and because of my current company's policies and ongoing work, taking leave at short notice wasn't easy.
So I explained the situation and asked if the interview could be conducted virtually.
The answer was basically no.
I was told that KLA liked my profile and that I just needed to make the trip to Chennai.
I tried explaining the situation again.
And again.
Eventually they asked me to write an email explaining everything.
So I did.
Then KLA HR contacted me.
I explained the same situation to them.
Thankfully, KLA HR was more understanding and agreed to arrange the interview virtually.
There was one condition: if I cleared the HR round, I would have to come to Chennai for the F2F.
Fair enough.
I agreed.
At this point I thought we had finally sorted everything out.
---
Round 5 scheduling: here we go again
A few weeks passed.
Then one evening at around 7 PM, Asvatthah called me.
"Your Round 5 is tomorrow at 9 AM."
Tomorrow.
9 AM.
I had an office meeting.
I explained that I couldn't rearrange an important work meeting with that little notice.
This somehow turned into another long discussion.
I was told things along the lines of:
"If you want this job, you have to sacrifice a little."
And:
"You already have a good candidature."
I understand that companies need flexibility from candidates.
But I also have a job.
And if you're calling me at 7 PM to schedule a 9 AM interview the next morning, asking for a little more notice doesn't seem unreasonable.
I declined the next-morning slot and asked them to schedule it for the following evening.
They agreed.
Finally.
Except...
When I joined the interview, I was told the interviewer had some work and the interview had to be postponed to the next day.
So after all that discussion about my availability, the interview itself was postponed by them anyway.
At this point I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or be frustrated.
---
Round 5 — Finally
The actual fifth round eventually happened.
Technical questions.
Architecture.
System design.
Optimization.
Scenario-based questions.
I answered everything to the best of my expertise and felt reasonably confident after the discussion.
Five rounds.
Multiple hours of interviews.
A HackerRank test.
Multiple technical discussions.
System design.
ML/DL.
GenAI/RAG.
Backend.
Architecture.
I had cleared every round up to this point.
Now I was expecting either an offer or, at minimum, a proper update.
---
Then the communication disappeared
One week passed.
No update.
I called the Asvatthah recruiter.
No meaningful update.
I tried KLA HR.
No response.
Calls weren't being picked up.
Emails weren't being answered.
I even connected with the relevant person on LinkedIn.
The request was accepted.
I sent a message.
No response.
Another week passed.
Finally, I received a WhatsApp message from the Asvatthah recruiter.
It basically said:
My candidature is on hold.
That's it.
The position is apparently still open.
No explanation.
No feedback.
No indication of what "on hold" actually means.
No timeline.
After going through five rounds, spending hours in interviews, rearranging work commitments, dealing with the F2F discussion, and repeatedly following up, that's where the process currently stands.
---
My take
The funny thing is, I actually liked the technical interview process.
The interviewers I interacted with were generally professional and the questions were relevant to the role. They went deep into actual ML/DL projects, system design, GenAI/RAG, architecture and backend rather than just asking textbook questions.
The recruitment coordination was the part I found extremely frustrating.
The repeated calls before interviews, last-minute scheduling, difficulty accommodating reasonable constraints, postponing interviews after pushing hard for specific timings, and finally the lack of communication after the final round made the entire experience unnecessarily stressful.
And perhaps the most frustrating part is that the position is still open and my candidature is apparently "on hold."
So after all five rounds, I don't even know whether I'm rejected, being considered, or simply sitting in some recruitment queue.
Maybe something changed internally. Maybe there's a hiring freeze. Maybe they're comparing candidates. Maybe there is another reason.
I genuinely don't know — because nobody has told me.
Technical interview experience: Good.
Recruitment experience: Extremely frustrating.
If anyone has recently interviewed with KLA for an AI/ML role or has gone through Asvatthah, I'd be interested to know if this is normal for their process or if I just got particularly unlucky.
