I had a disappointing interview experience. The interviewers came across as cold and disinterested from the start, which made for an uncomfortable atmosphere.

The technical portion involved multiple LeetCode-style problems. I completed the tasks well within the time limits and discussed runtime complexities, but the interviewers seemed dissatisfied because I hesitated at points or initially made small errors, even though I corrected them quickly. It became clear that they were essentially looking for someone to regurgitate textbook LeetCode solutions verbatim, with no room for thought process or natural debugging. One of the interviewers began correcting my code as I was writing it, which felt intrusive. While I tried to explain my thought process, it seemed to be misinterpreted as asking for help, as the interviewer kept offering unsolicited hints.

The behavioral interview was similarly frustrating. We went through my resume in chronological order, starting with the earliest roles. By the time we reached my recent experience — arguably the most relevant — we were out of time. I never got the chance to highlight my latest accomplishments.

Overall, the interviewers appeared disengaged and uninterested throughout the process, which left a negative impression of the company and its culture.

LeetCode 647: Palindromic Substrings

LeetCode 20: Valid Parentheses