I was reached out to by a recruiter. We talked through the role, and I moved to the interview stage.

The first round was a CV deep dive. In reality, this was a chat about my current project, its architecture, and the reasons why it was designed a particular way.

The second round had three interviews:

1. A code review problem. I had to review a bit of code that filters a search.
2. An architectural design session. I had to design a reviews API (CRUD), discussing how I would scale it, what database I would use, auto-scaling, caching, and what programming language I would use, among other things.
3. It's called a whiteboard exercise, but it was just a HackerRank question. I was asked how to move a knight on a chessboard to a goal position. The solution uses breadth-first search. It's something I could have Googled and implemented, but ultimately, it was not something I prepared for.

Overall, the experience was okay. I am not a fan of interview questions that require implementing data structures that are not really used every day, especially when the answers can be Googled.

If I can provide any advice, it would be to tell the recruiter to give you more time and not feel pressured to go straight to an interview. For an interview process like Indeed's, you will need to study your college data structures and then forget them again afterward.

What is the best database to use for an API connection, and why?