I applied online and received an email for an interview with the Development Manager. The interview was friendly, but most questions were about front-end roles, even though I applied as a Backend Developer. I was not asked anything related to backend, C#, OOP, database, SQL, or data structures.

In the final 30 minutes, I was given a problem-solving task: determine if two subsets with the same number of items are similar. I provided a solution that worked 100% with O(n) time complexity. However, the interviewer stated there was a better way and my solution was not performant, despite not testing it. His proposed solution, which involved checking if the sum of two sets was equal, was 100% incorrect.

For example, his solution would work for subsets like {1, 2, 4} and {4, 1, 2}. However, it would fail for subsets like {9, 6} and {8, 7}, as their sums are equal but the subsets are not similar.

Subsequently, I received a rejection email from Agoda.

To Agoda: The rejection is not from you; it is from me.

See if two subsets with the same number of items are similar or not.