You need all your stars to align to clear their interview process rather than the right skills. Interviewers lack the skill of how to set right expectations with the candidate and assume the candidate will somehow know what to focus on.

There were a total of 5 rounds. The System Design, Management, and Values round was face-to-face, and the two coding rounds were online.

I cleared all the face-to-face rounds with flying colors. However, the coding rounds were scheduled with the Australian team, which, in my opinion, does not conduct collaborative interviews.

It seems they have a checklist in mind where you need to tick all the boxes, but they won't tell you what those boxes are. So, if you are lucky, you might check them all. If you miss any, they will come back saying, "He didn't do this," even though that expectation was never set with you.

In the coding rounds, you are given a problem statement for which you need to write production-level code. Then, you are given a scaled-up version to incorporate into your code, followed by some design decisions to answer. All of this has to be done in about 50-55 minutes. Even if you do all of this correctly, they might end up saying, "Hey, he did everything well, but you know, he didn't ask clarification questions and didn't propose alternative approaches."

The fact is, you will find the time insufficient for the above tasks, and you will end up just writing code and test cases.

Furthermore, I find the interviewers lack skills. Even if the candidate doesn't ask, they could prompt them to see if they can propose alternative designs, but I guess that would hurt their ego.

In my case, in my first interview, I asked a lot of clarifying questions, which only allowed me to complete the first part of the code, and the feedback was that I was "rusty."

So, in the second round, I solved the first and second parts of the problem successfully, including all test cases and design questions. The feedback then was that I didn't ask clarifying questions.

I would recommend getting your interviews scheduled with the India team, as they are very collaborative. If they want you to focus on something, they will set the right expectations and judge you based on your performance. The Australian team will just go through their motions, and you might pass if you are lucky.

Company-wise, I believe they are pretty good with their set of products and policies, but their interview process for senior positions definitely needs a revamp.

Before appearing for a coding interview, perform all your rituals because you need all your stars to align, rather than just your skills.