A Capital One recruiter reached out to me on Hired at the end of October.

I had a 30-minute chat with him the following week. The discussion covered what Capital One was looking for, the technologies they use, and the interview process. I raised concerns about the position being for a "Senior Associate" when I was a new graduate without the required two years of experience. The recruiter brushed off the experience requirement and said he would send a Code Signal assessment the next day.

I received the General Coding Assessment from Code Signal the next day and completed it near the end of the two-week deadline. The assessment had four questions that were manageable if you had been studying LeetCode topics like 2D arrays, 1D arrays, and string filtering. I scored approximately 400 out of 1200.

The following week, the Capital One recruiter emailed me to say I would be moving on to the Power Day, which would consist of four one-hour interviews. He also mentioned a preparatory phone call. However, on the morning of the call, he sent a vague excuse for canceling but advised me to email him if I needed anything. I emailed the recruiter with some questions, but he ghosted me for a week, leaving me to proceed with the Power Day without his assistance.

The Power Day was somewhat chaotic. All four rounds were initially scheduled, but ten minutes before the start, I was informed there would only be three rounds. Then, midway through the interviews, after a break following the second round, I received another email stating there would be a fourth round after the third one.

• The first round was a coding challenge where I had to write a function to determine if a given string, such as “arrb6???oiuqwer???hhh8?”, contained a pair of numbers separated by exactly three question marks, where the numbers summed to 10. I solved this relatively easily and tested it against all cases.
• The second round focused on system design. I was asked to design a smart thermometer for an apartment complex, covering frontend, backend, and database aspects. This was beyond my experience as a new graduate and did not go well.
• The third round was behavioral. My interviewer even remarked on my ability to discuss school experiences, as he was surprised to see a new graduate interviewing for the position.
• The fourth round was a technical case study. I was asked for ways to improve Capital One's AI assistant, ENO, and to walk through and explain some code, including potential improvements. This part was straightforward, and I understood the code.

After the Power Day, I emailed my recruiter to thank them and the interviewers, but they continued to ghost me. The very next morning, I received an automatic denial email for the position. I suspect this was primarily due to my status as a new graduate, even though I performed well in several Power Day rounds. The Capital One recruiter should have advised me to apply for the Technology Development Program, given my new graduate status, but instead, he largely wasted my time and provided no support throughout the process.

Regardless, as a new graduate, I reached the final round for a "Senior Associate" position. Either I am skilled at software engineering interviews, or Capital One has an easy interview process. I'll let you decide...

Write a function that returns True if a given string, such as “arrb6???oiuqwer???hhh8?”, has a pair of numbers split by exactly three question marks, where the pair adds up to 10.

Design a smart thermometer for an apartment complex, covering everything from the frontend to the backend and database.

Tell me about a time you had to juggle multiple priorities and change focus as tasks changed.

Tell me about a time you had to work with someone difficult on your team and how you made it workable.

Tell me about a time when a project didn’t go the way you expected it to go. Tell me about a time when you successfully overcame a blocker and completed the task on time.