I spoke with the recruiter by phone, and they scheduled an interview for the very next day.

Upon my arrival, the recruiter spoke with me briefly and reiterated what they had previously told me on the phone: they are only seeking very senior software engineers.

Following this, they turned me over to an engineer for the remainder of the interview.

After a brief discussion about the company's products, the interviewer presented a Java programming problem to solve on the whiteboard.

The problem was as follows: given a class that is a Collection of Collections (let's call it CofC), code an Iterator for the CofC class. I needed to implement the next() and hasNext() methods, along with the constructor. The only method allowed from the Collection interface was iterator(); specifically, size() and other methods were off-limits.

During this exercise, the interviewer interacted with me, offering some suggestions and pointing out errors.

I would not describe this as a trivial problem, but it is not overly difficult and likely serves as a fair test for the allotted time. I made some initial mistakes and struggled to focus adequately, which impacted my performance. I strongly suggest practicing this exercise at home, timing yourself, and paying close attention to your thought process. My impression was that the approach, not solely the correct answer, was important.

Later that same day, I received an email stating that they would not be proceeding with my candidacy to the next step. It was appreciated that I received this information promptly, especially compared to many companies that either never follow up or contact you weeks later to indicate they are still interviewing other candidates.

Code an iterator for a collection of collections in Java.