The interview took place over one call and two video conferences and one challenge.

My initial interview was with the hiring manager to make sure that both I and the company were a good fit. Next up was with the department team lead to verify that my experience was up to snuff to move on. After that, I was scheduled an interview with a few members of the team where we went over some technical questions, theoretical stuff, and baselines for core concepts.

All seemed well, and communication was very fluid. Then, at some point, the hiring manager reached back out to inform me that I was essentially in a tiebreaker with another candidate, and they had decided to hand us a coding challenge in a language of our choosing to perform a task.

I quickly finished up my script, ran a few verifications, and handed it in, as we were not given a deadline for the task. I also provided a written explanation of what it did and why I wrote it the way I did, as well as how I could improve it or make it more dynamic if necessary.

Then, radio silence for the better part of three weeks. After reaching out to someone who referred me to figure out why I couldn't get a hold of anyone, I was informed that the hiring manager had left the company and there was a new one who would look into it.

As too much time had passed, I presumed that my application was no longer valid, but I pressed to find out why. After nearly another month of asking what happened and why I wasn't informed that I was not accepted, I was told the script was not dynamic enough, even after providing a written explanation explaining how I could make it more dynamic.

In hindsight, I should have just improved the script but was worried that, in a competitive manner, getting a reasonably finished product quickly would be more efficient, as long as there was a written plan for improvements.

It is an assumption, but I'm fairly certain that I missed the position due to the hiring manager change and shakeups in the company at the time and that it had nothing to do with my work product, the interview, or the final challenge. Since then, they had moved to a non-remote setup, and I've yet to receive another interview invitation for any other related positions.

How can you detect a SYN flood attack?