The phone screen round involved implementing a card game with specific rules. The initial logic was simple to implement. The second part of the question required making the game flexible, for example, by allowing a variable number of cards and players instead of just two. The code was already four pages long after the first part, and there was no time left to implement the extensions. It felt more like a typing speed test than a programming exercise.

I focused on modularity, readability, and class design, but it seems these aspects were less relevant compared to reaching the second part of the question.

It would have been a better strategy to directly address the extension of the problem with slightly less focus on clean programming style.

Also, it was strange to expect accommodation for a standard deck of cards that extends beyond 52 cards. Either the problem shouldn't have used a standard 52-card deck or it should have specified that it was not a standard deck.

The interviewer was junior and asked to print the output, even though there were already methods returning the desired output. They also interrupted frequently to initialize things in other classes that were not part of the current code flow. I usually leave initialization and wiring for the end.

Implement a card game "War" with 2 players and 52 cards.