I recently went through a series of interviews for a position that I'm really excited about. I had a positive first interview, which was a screening, followed by another good round with the team lead. On September 1st, I had my third interview, which involved a case study presentation with both the team lead and the regional manager. They mentioned I would hear back in about two weeks, but I was warned that a quicker response might indicate a negative outcome. The day after the interview, I sent a thank you email to the recruiter. They replied, saying they would try to debrief before going on PTO, but if they couldn't, a stand-in recruiter would reach out. Sure enough, the stand-in recruiter contacted me, but they had no feedback yet because they were still evaluating candidates. Since then, I've followed up once last week and was told to wait another 1-2 weeks for an update. I'm really torn about whether this is a good or bad sign. If they were going to reject me, why would they keep me in the loop for so long instead of just sending a rejection? It feels like a mixed signal, and I just want to know where I stand.