I've had some time to appropriately reflect on the interview process and here are my thoughts: -I was referred by a MongoDB employee for a Sr. CSM role and the internal recruiter called to let me know that my non-IT background was making them apprehensive. She asked if I would like to be considered for the lower level CSM role. I'd heard such wonderful things about MongoDB, so I obliged, despite the salary being significantly lower than what I was currently earning AND lower than industry standard for a technical CSM. I also figured I would negotiate for a higher salary when the time came. -I prepared for two rounds of interviews (one with a peer, one with the hiring manager). Both went very well. -In preparation for the last presentation round, I shared my templated deck with my peer mentor and walked her through my talk track. I felt that, at the time, she was very receptive and impressed. In retrospect, I wish she would have been more forthcoming with actionable feedback. -I thought my presentation went really well. My product demo (spinning up a cluster) was great. The feedback I received was that I had great technical acumen and brought amazing energy. They did give me some constructive feedback, mostly that they wished I dove deeper with the customer personas, which was fair. -It took awhile for them to get back to me -- over a week. Once I tracked down the recruiter, she told me that although they really liked me, they didn't think I did enough "customer discovery" during my presentation and that I focused too much on the technical demo. I felt that it was an unfair piece of feedback given the inconsistent messaging about my lack of technical skills at the very beginning of the process. I made sure to focus a lot of my efforts on the technical piece because of their apprehension, and it ended up costing me the role. -The recruiter told me there *may* be some open roles -- not in the CSM realm -- where they could potentially see me fitting in, but that nothing was scoped yet. I felt like she offered this olive branch to lessen the blow because my interview was actually very good and they probably found someone they could pay less & mold to their liking. Some general feedback: -The process took way too long. I was being strung along for over a month. -It seemed like they were apprehensive about me from the beginning. I think this created an unfair bias. -Overall, I did not think they were clear about presentation objectives. All's well that ends well. Not only did it motivate me to be more technical, but I am now working at AWS as a technical CSM. The pay is substantially higher, and the opportunities are abundant. Thanks for not choosing me, I guess!