I had an intro call with a recruiter, which covered the usual corporate topics and wasn't a particularly interesting conversation.

They then took a week to inform me that I would be advancing to the first technical test. The process involves at least four tests, including a take-home assignment, a system design challenge, and a "pairing" session.

The first technical test focused on algorithms, and I was provided with study materials (YouTube videos and LeetCode problems).

The call began with approximately 20 minutes of an engineer asking questions from a script. It felt quite pushy, as if they were trying to verify the experience I had mentioned. Following this, we moved on to the coding portion.

The test was a live coding interview conducted on Coderpad with two engineers. One engineer remained silent for most of the call, while the other offered little assistance. The first problem was straightforward. I initially solved it using a less efficient method before improving it to a more "smart" solution. I took a considerable amount of time to explain my reasoning and thought process. I was pleased when I successfully implemented the solution. At no point did I get lost or have to redo work. There were some typos and missing return statements, but I fixed them immediately. This part of the interview felt like a success.

Suddenly, with less than 20 minutes remaining in the call, they introduced a second problem. This problem was more difficult, involving a tree data structure and recursion. I had to rush to complete it, lacking sufficient time to think and jumping directly into implementation. I felt nervous and tired, and eventually became stuck. I asked for help, and one of the engineers (the one who had been speaking) attempted to assist me. However, I felt he provided a misleading hint that steered me away from my initial, correct approach.

They stopped me with 5 minutes left in the call. I hadn't reached a working solution, but the interviewer stated I was "close." I disagree; I wasn't close, especially after the detour caused by his "hint."

Finally, they opened the floor for my questions, but the overall interaction felt very impersonal, so I didn't have much to ask. The recruiter then took six days to respond, stating they had decided not to proceed with my application.

Honestly, I feel that disqualifying a candidate because they couldn't solve a surprise recursion problem isn't the most effective method for finding good talent. These are all long-solved problems, and knowing the specific solution reveals little about a candidate's overall quality or what they can contribute to a team. It's a shame, but it's likely a place I wouldn't want to work for anyway.

One easy algorithm problem.

Then another one, which was a bit more complex (requiring recursion).