Started with a phone screen with the recruiter to get to know a little more about me. It was pretty straightforward, and the recruiter was very nice.

Then there was another screening with the hiring manager, where they asked a very simple LeetCode easy question, and then I had the chance to ask questions about the role and company. Again, the hiring manager was very kind and accommodating.

This is where it got frustrating. Next was a take-home exercise where they gave two options on which project to complete.

They gave you 72 hours for the assignment to be completed but expected that it should not take more than 2 hours to complete. The instructions were quite vague, but the assignments they asked to complete weren't too bad.

I spent a little more time than expected for the assignment to make sure it was solid, but I ended up not passing this round. After reading feedback, it seemed like they expected the perfect application, something that definitely didn't seem possible within the 2-hour expectation. Small notes were detrimental to your score.

I didn't expect it to be at this level, given the time expectation and how easy the LeetCode problem was in the previous round. I wish New Relic would have been more transparent and realistic about what they were looking for in the take-home assignment. I really felt like I could have gotten this position if they communicated what they were looking for better.

Oh well.

LeetCode easy (very easy), take-home assignment.