The interview process consisted of the following steps:

• Initial contact with a recruiter
• Frontend interview
• Backend interview, followed by a Solutions Design interview

The frontend interview was very positive. The interviewers were quite friendly.

I was able to complete the entire problem, which involved implementing a GET call to an API to fetch data and then creating components to display this information. It was quite straightforward.

The backend interview was less pleasant. The interviewer was mostly quiet and showed no empathy.

The presentation of the problem was simple: implementing a key-value store in Java. I completed the initial implementation, but then the interviewer posed a follow-up question. I struggled to understand it initially, even after asking for clarification a few times. My first answer was incorrect, but I eventually understood the requirement and proposed a valid solution.

The systems design interview was frustrating.

I designed a cloud-native system, but the interviewers questioned its use of Kafka. I explained my reasoning, and they acknowledged that the system could work. This was disappointing because I had dedicated significant time to studying for this interview and had encountered a similar problem the day before, leading me to believe I had developed an optimal solution.

I'm unsure if I failed to articulate my ideas effectively. The interviewers remained largely silent throughout my step-by-step explanation, and I assumed they were following along.

The problem was to design a system for sending email campaigns.

Described above in the description.