I applied online and later received an email from an agent to schedule a phone screen.

The agent provided tips on how to succeed in the technical interview.

Following that was the programming challenge.

Unfortunately, I did not get past it. The agent called me to announce that I had failed, rather than sending a standard rejection email.

The programming challenge was atypical. In all of my past interviews, the solutions to programming challenges all involved declarative programming (parameters in and solution out).

But during this particular interview, I was asked a question that required storing state and polling data at regular intervals.

It had to do with airplanes landing at an airport, but the scenario was so contrived that it threw me in a loop.

To add to the difficulty, the voice of the interviewer was muffled. It was hard to make out what he was saying.