I attended a job fair at my college and spoke with a representative from Intuit. The representative explicitly stated that, based on my resume, I would be a good candidate for an internship and should expect to schedule an interview soon. A few days to a week later, I received an email to schedule an interview.

Initially, the position was for a User Interaction Design internship. However, I asked the recruiter a couple of times if I could interview for the software engineering position instead. My first request went unanswered, possibly due to it being overlooked or ignored. On my second attempt, the request was granted, even enthusiastically. Consequently, I proceeded to interview for the software engineering position.

The day before the interview, I reviewed my Java concepts and felt extremely prepared. The first phone call came, and I followed the email instructions to log into an online conference room. The interviewer was very pleasant and asked a comprehensive range of questions related to Java, my preferred language. I answered all questions with what felt like 105% accuracy – I'm exaggerating, but only slightly.

Next was the online coding portion. Within the online conference room, there was an interactive display where I could write code to address prompts. The interviewer controlled when and where I could write. Unfortunately, my interviewer claimed to have no experience with the interactive display, which resulted in a significant loss of time. Typically, to write new code based on a prompt, a programmer would reference the existing prompt code. This code was quite extensive, including one or two classes, a few functions, and other details to consider (like property names and parameters). However, writing the code required using a whiteboard page, which the interviewer had to switch to from the prompt's code. I had to ask the interviewer to switch back to the code a couple of times, which further consumed valuable time, especially as he navigated switching between views. We ultimately had to skip the coding questions due to the time constraints.

Following the initial online technical interview, I was scheduled for a second behavioral phone interview. I felt this went adequately. Nothing remarkable happened, though I did manage to make the interviewer laugh (in a positive way). This interviewer was also very pleasant, even laid-back. Before concluding the call, I mentioned the technical difficulties I experienced in my previous interview. He and his colleague (my first interviewer) acknowledged the issue, stating that the decision on whether I could retake it or receive other accommodations would be up to the interview evaluators.

A week or two later, I received an email informing me that I did not qualify. It was disappointing.

Java concepts, such as polymorphism, abstract classes vs. interfaces, etc.