A recruiter found me through LinkedIn. We had a 30-minute chat, then I spoke with the hiring manager for another 30 minutes. He asked about my background and a simple interview question. Afterwards, I had the phone interview.

Here's the interesting part: I hadn't used Java for about five years, though I had worked with C#, C++, C, Python, etc., and on very high-scale projects. They were looking for a Java engineer and were concerned about my Java experience. During the interviews, they asked many Java-related questions and some easy general interview questions. I solved all of them, and the feedback was positive.

However, they decided to stop the process because they didn't think my background was sufficient for the job description.

To me, this is quite interesting. If you're going to eliminate a candidate based on their background, regardless of how they perform during the interview, why interview them at all? At the very latest, the process should have stopped after my conversation with the hiring manager, even though I answered all his questions. Alternatively, if they had informed me at the beginning of the process, stating, "We are looking for a Java expert," I wouldn't have wasted their time (or mine).

The people I spoke with on the phone were very nice, but I didn't appreciate the way the process unfolded.

Simple string and array manipulations.