This has been the most bizarre and negative interviewing experience of my life.

Like others, after some successful phone interviews, I was invited onsite for a 4.5-hour interview. The first interviewer handed me a laptop to code on. It had the free version of IntelliJ installed with no internet access, making it quite barebones. The interviewer had a question written on a piece of paper and began writing it on the whiteboard. He struggled to present the question and kept confusing himself. He apologized, mentioning it was his first time conducting an interview at the company. He had recently been hired and came from a C# background. This was unsettling, as I was interviewing for a Java position.

I set up a basic Java project on the laptop and began coding. After finishing my solution, we moved on to writing unit tests. I mentioned needing to add JUnit classes to my classpath, but he insisted it should just work. He said it would be fine if it didn't compile, despite the tests not compiling. For the sake of time, I stated I would have preferred to use an archetype or template to set up the project, as I come from a Maven background. He mentioned he had never set up a project himself at the company and was always handed one. I finished writing my tests to demonstrate my thought process, adding exception handling and error checking. He stared at the code without comment, leaving me unsure if he had questions or simply didn't understand. Eventually, he seemed satisfied and said it made sense. After the coding question, he allowed me time to ask questions. He also asked why I chose Grubhub. While I was speaking for two to three minutes, he interrupted, saying, "Hold on, can you repeat that again?" I asked which part, and he replied, "All of it. Just start over." Confused, I repeated what I had said over the past two to three minutes.

After the interview concluded, he seemed satisfied and left to get the next interviewer.

Fifteen minutes later, the recruiter entered and informed me that I had performed poorly and should leave. He claimed I didn't test my code, which I did, and that I didn't use Java 8 lambdas. This was surprising, as I had written unit tests and didn't use Java 8 lambdas because they weren't necessary for the solution. I wasn't even aware Java 8 was a requirement for this position, as it was never mentioned during the interview process. At this point, the recruiter declared the interview over and asked me to leave. It was peculiar that no comment was made about my algorithm for the coding question, which is the most critical aspect. I left after explaining my confusion regarding his feedback. He clearly did not believe me.

This demonstrates what can happen when you are interviewed for a Java position by someone with a C# background who is new to the company and unfamiliar with its interview process.

Coding on a laptop