The recruiter was very helpful. We arranged my phone interview, allowing me as much time as possible to study. I am a machine learning engineer, not a software engineer per se, and I had to relearn many things I was once good at.

The telephone interview was a catastrophe. After 15 minutes, the interviewer's microphone failed, and I lost at least 10 minutes of my precious time. I ended up holding my phone in one hand and trying to code with the other.

The interviewer was courteous but ignored all of my questions about the purpose of the problem (getting the big picture) and about the direction I would take. Oh, and they were about three minutes late.

The task description was at least twice as long as I expected and took a while to read and process.

Normally, if I have a colleague with a problem, I expect some collaboration. If I ask a question, such as whether my probabilistic approach is acceptable, then you would answer.