The interview process followed a stereotypical pattern: a phone screen with a recruiter, a technical screen over a phone call, and four on-site interviews.

The phone and technical screens went off without a hitch. The recruiter asked what language I would prefer to interview in for the on-site, and I stated Python. This became important later.

Upon arriving for the on-site interviews, I went into my first session. I was asked what language I wanted to program in. Caught off guard, I answered that I had requested Python. The interviewer stated he didn't know Python but would be willing to learn from me during the interview. After finishing their question, they asked how making the process multi-threaded would work. I explained the nuances of Python threading, why it differs from other languages, and then implemented the change.

My second on-site interview followed a similar pattern. I was again asked what language I preferred, and at this point, I started to see a problem. The interviewer didn't know Python. It wasn't a major issue, and we moved through the problem. I explained the solution as I worked, detailing my plan and producing valid code that compiled and functioned as intended. The interviewer then reviewed the code and couldn't figure out how it worked. I walked them through it again, but they still didn't grasp it. After a few more walkthroughs, I realized they weren't understanding that a variable was being declared, modified, and then returned as the loop's control. I explained that part more carefully. They said they thought they understood, but time ran out to confirm. I moved on to the next interview.

After the interview, I went to lunch and met with the person who conducted my technical screen. This was uneventful. He had to leave for a meeting and dropped me off in the lobby to wait for my next interview.

The next interview was scheduled to start at 2 p.m. 2 p.m. arrived, and there was no one there. I assumed they were caught up in a meeting, which seemed reasonable. At 2:05 p.m., still no interviewer. By 2:10 p.m., I went to the front desk to ask for them to be pinged. At 2:15 p.m., no one had appeared. At 2:20 p.m., they finally showed up. We went to a room, and they began with basic questions like, "What's your experience?" and "Why are you leaving your other company?" After this, they gave me a problem. I started talking through it, jotting down notes on the whiteboard. I turned around to see the interviewer answering emails on their computer, clearly not paying attention. As I reached the end of the problem, I walked through some test cases.

Interviewer: "How does this work without a global variable?" Me: "There's a return statement, right here..." I: "That doesn't matter. How does it get the data from the other parts without a global?" Me: "It's a recursive function – the retur-" I: "No. This won't work without a global." Me: "It doesn't need a global; the return statement passes the data ba-" I: "Sorry, time's up. Let's get you to the next interview."

The fourth interview was without issue. The interviewer knew Python well enough to read my code, and we got along great. They were attentive and respectful throughout the session. We discussed general concepts for network development and similar topics.

Without even leaving the hotel, I received the news that they were not hiring.

At that point, I was bummed out but didn't think to post about it. Then today, over a week after the interviews, my recruiter reached out to ask how it went – over a week after I was told I wasn't getting the position.

Closing notes: Disorganized interview process, lack of communication between recruiters, the hiring committee, and interviewers, and a general lack of interest from the interviewers.

Implement a basic data structure using primitives and a stack.

Tree/Graph problem.

Generate a list of all strings from groups of characters, one character per group.

Implement a cache.