The recruiter sent out numerous interview guides to review before the interview, which repeatedly said 'talk out loud.'

The interviewers asked questions with pretty obvious answers. I explained all the more obvious, but less optimal, solutions before touching on the optimal one.

The interviewers spent a lot of time asking why those weren't optimal and apparently reported this as if I had to be guided to a solution.

For what may be the first time ever, I got interview feedback saying I got to the optimal solution but it took some guiding.

In summary, I did what the interview prep asked me to do: explain my thought process. This was perceived as if I kept taking the wrong path to the solution.

Easy questions with obvious, cliché solutions like "use a binary tree" or "use a hash map".