Apple SDET/QA interview experience

I have 9 years of experience (4 in USA, 5 in India). I was looking for a ~300k TC for my next change which usually is ICT3/4 role at Apple. I was interviewing with 3 teams in parallel. I cleared all the rounds of one team and had virtual on-sites scheduled for two other teams. I decided to decline the virtual on-sites as I was happy with this team. HR asked me my expectations and I said 330k TC. She came up with an offer of 196k TC(base+rsu, 0 joining)!!! Her second offer was 227k(base+rsu) and 50k joining bonus. When I asked her the level of this role, she said it was an ICT2/3 band. That explained these offers. I regretted declining the other virtual on-sites for few days. Few weeks later, I got another offer from a different team. This time I made sure that the role was ICT3/4 before starting the interview process. HR gave me numbers amounting to 330k TC/ICT4 role and said it needs to go for an approval. She came back and said that since I have been extended an offer earlier (which I declined) and both teams report to same VP, they will extend me the same offer. I still don’t understand how they compared an ICT3 offer with an ICT4. I was really frustrated for few days. In the end, after 5 months of interviewing (18 different companies and 13 different teams at Apple), I got 7 offers and finally landed up with a job that I am really excited about and a TC I was hoping for. TC: 345k (I am not working at Nutanix anymore) TLDR: Confirm the level of the role before you start your interview process at Apple.