This process was a mixed bag, but the onsite truly soured me.

The initial phone screen with a recruiter was typical, featuring personality questions and inquiries about my resume. The recruiter seemed a bit disinterested and distracted, but not unpleasantly so. He was a nice guy.

The second stage offered a choice between a take-home assessment or a phone technical interview. I chose the take-home assessment, which I was given 24 hours to complete. I appreciated having a choice, as I feel take-home assessments are stronger indicators of a candidate's abilities, mimicking a lower-pressure work environment rather than solving vague puzzles under time constraints.

After passing this stage, things fell apart. I was invited for an onsite that included two technical components. I inquired about what to expect, as it was an Android-focused position and I wanted to know if I should prepare more for Android specifics or general algorithmic questions. After several days without a response, I finally heard back with what was essentially an "I don't know" answer.

Before proceeding, the email stated that each technical portion would last one hour. However, after introductions and general questions, this ended up being closer to 40 minutes to actually attempt the problem.

The first technical portion of the onsite was, I guess, okay. The interviewer was young and polite but seemed inexperienced in interviewing. My email indicated I would be using CoderPad, but I was asked to open Android Studio and share my screen instead. Fortunately, I already had it installed, but I had to close my last Android project and start a new one, which further ate into my time. This could have been avoided with better preparation materials. The question was Android-focused, which was unfortunate as I had prepared primarily for LeetCode-style questions due to a lack of clarity on what to expect. The interviewer simply copy-pasted a function call (mimicking a third-party library) into the chat and asked me to implement it, with no further explanation or expectations. I was taken aback initially but eventually found the solution. I thought it was an odd question, and apparently, the interviewer agreed, as he mentioned I'd never have to do something like that in real life. While I liked the interviewer, this type of question was a huge disappointment as it wasn't indicative of my abilities. The interviewer was friendly and collaborative, which I appreciated.

The second technical part of the process was with a different engineer, and I knew immediately I would not be moving forward. This was a more senior engineer who clearly didn't want to be there. He rushed through his introduction and then obviously ignored me during mine. We used CoderPad for this portion, and he copy-pasted a wall of code into the editor. He explained the code and the question in a very vague, convoluted manner, and did not include comments indicating expectations or what I was supposed to do. His microphone quality was poor, making it difficult to understand him. Asking him to repeat himself only increased his annoyance. When I asked clarifying questions, he seemed disinterested, even stating he wasn't entirely sure about my questions since he didn't write the prompt. I spent about 10-15 minutes just trying to understand the question, and the interviewer grew increasingly frustrated. While "aggressive" and "hostile" might be too strong, I definitely did not feel comfortable or welcome. Attempts at collaboration were fruitless; he clearly had no interest, and he rarely answered my clarifying questions. When it was my turn to ask questions at the end, his tone was clearly rushed and careless, as if it didn't matter because I wasn't going to be selected. This second technical portion was likely the worst interview experience of my career.

While I was initially excited about the opportunity, I feel I dodged a bullet. Arbitrary questions with no clear purpose, inexperienced or disinterested interviewers, and a lack of preparation materials made me feel like the company was actively working against my success rather than setting me up for it, as other companies do. It felt like they didn't want me to work there and were trying to weed me out, which makes me uneasy about the actual work environment. It's unfortunate because once I understood what was being asked, it was a fairly simple question. However, by that point, I already felt very defeated and unwelcome, and had difficulty focusing.

On the upside, I had a friendly recruiter and a choice in the format of the initial technical screen, which was appreciated.

• Take-home Android assessment focusing on Retrofit and RxJava.

• Implement one function of a third-party library for Android.

• General recursion-focused algorithm question.