The initial interview was a phone screen with a recruiter. After passing the screen, I was invited to complete the CodeSignal online assessment.

The assessment consisted of 4 questions in 70 minutes:

• 2 Easy
• 1 Medium
• 1 Hard (similar to LeetCode).

I passed the assessment by fully solving the Easy questions, partially solving the Medium, and getting a few points on the Hard.

The final stage was Power Day, consisting of 4 separate interviews:

• Technical Coding
• Case Interview (code-based)
• Behavioral
• Technical System Design.

The first technical interview involved a three-level coding exercise on CodeSignal, requiring me to complete all three levels within 55 minutes. The interviewer pasted prompts and JSON inputs into the Zoom chat instead of directly into the editor, making me manually format them. The interviewer was unengaging and non-conversational despite my efforts to explain my thought process.

The case interview involved validating transactions for a virtual credit card network; the question felt ambiguous and somewhat unrealistic. If you get something similar, stay calm, read thoroughly, and think creatively.

The behavioral interview lasted only 20 minutes despite being scheduled for an hour. The interviewer asked only 3 questions, was distracted by a production issue, and required me to repeat myself several times.

The last interview was a system design discussion. As a front-end-focused engineer, I found gaps in my back-end design knowledge despite studying. The interviewer was impatient, ignored half of my questions, frequently leaned close to and away from the camera making unusual faces, and allowed her children to run into the room multiple times, disrupting the conversation.

Overall, the experience felt unprofessional, and most interviewers lacked engaging personalities. Receiving a cold rejection email early the next business day from a do-not-reply address only reinforced this negative impression. I wouldn't reapply or recommend interviewing here.

Tell me about a situation when you had to learn something new quickly.