I was contacted by a recruiter through a referral and then set up for a phone chat with a team manager. The conversation with the manager was good, and I received the go-ahead for a phone screen.

The phone screen interviewer was awkward and all over the place. He asked me some questions about multithreading, which I answered correctly. He then asked about preventing deadlocks and, after I suggested a solution that I had already mentioned at the beginning, he stated that I could prevent it in a certain way, seemingly forgetting my earlier response. There was a small coding question on multithreading, probably seven lines of code, which I managed to get right with a little help.

With 15 minutes remaining, he jumped to ask if I had any questions, making me wonder if he was finished asking me technical questions. I started asking him questions about the team, project, and challenges. He then suddenly jumped back to ask more technical questions regarding how I would handle operations. I thought I answered everything fine.

I ended up receiving the same email about not having the perfect background. This was likely the most haphazard phone screen I've had in my career, as the interviewer lacked structure and didn't seem prepared. It could have been an outlier for the company, as I've heard great things about them.

Don't waste your time interviewing here unless you are sure you have exactly the 'perfect background' for the role.

Multi-threading stuff