WORST interview experience ever.

It started with a referral for an application-level position. I received an email requesting time for a phone interview. After that, I got a call from the same engineer stating they had to fill the requisition, so I would have to come onsite that week. I rescheduled other interviews and went for the interview.

When I reached the building, my point of contact was unreachable. I waited in the lobby for 15 minutes. A gentleman from a completely different team then approached and said, "I will interview you for my team." So, from an application team to a low-level embedded team—what a jump!

One of the interviewers asked me what a balanced tree was. I started explaining about the height and how the difference in height leads to a balanced tree. I was shocked to learn that the interviewer's definition of a balanced tree was a binary search tree. After explaining, and with the interviewer searching the web for 5 minutes, they said there are these two definitions of a balanced tree and let's move on.

Another interviewer was very rigid about hash chaining implementation. They wanted specific answers to specific questions rather than the thought process. The whole process was weird.

Question whether the binary tree is balanced.