By far, this was the worst interview experience.

For some reason, these people think they are a notch above all other companies. They told me there were going to be two telephonic screens. I said okay.

The first round was regarding merging n sorted lists. I came up with a simple solution first, then upon hinting, suggested using a heap or priority queue. I was told to assume methods such as getMin() and removeMin(), etc., since I didn’t remember the exact calls. Once I did that and wrote the algorithm, I cleared.

Second interview: The person starts coding 26 minutes into the interview. This was also using a priority queue. I came up with the right algorithm and approach and assumed similar calls to a heap. Since I used another programming language that he didn’t know, he started questioning me why I was removing and adding back to the hash when I pointed out that updates were unavailable and these were specific to the language. Even though the complete approach and algorithm were correct, he gave negative feedback.

This is when things got funny. I challenged the interview with the recruiter, telling them that I used the right data structure and completed the algorithm in 25 minutes after starting the coding so late. He nitpicked about the hash methods I was using in my language and pointed her to a reference about how it is used.

The recruiter comes back, saying the hiring manager will give me a chance for a third telephonic round. I was like, "B​s to these guys," as I already had two offers by then. But I thought, why not? Perhaps they will try their best to fail me this time; let’s see how that goes.

This time, they asked me a question on 'interval intersection': given a list of start and end times of people checking in and out of a room, find the time with the maximum guests. I came up with an algorithm with O(n) time and extra space. At first, he couldn’t understand the solution, but then he agreed.

Next, he asked me to enhance it to not use so much space. In that given time, I came up with the approach but couldn’t complete the implementation, but he got it. He finally said that I got the right solution and also optimized it for space. If space is optimized, then time will be compromised due to sorting needed. So, anyway, I thought the interview ended well as he acknowledged that the solution was right, and I also gave the approach for optimized space.

After two days, I get an email saying they are moving on with other candidates.

I want to thank them for giving me the opportunity to practice so many questions and for avoiding me joining a team that has such jerks who are so headstrong that they couldn’t accept that I cleared the interview. The third interview was a total sham, and they wanted to defend their second interviewee’s judgment. Either that or they really didn’t have any openings. This was for their security team.

Do not waste your time interviewing with these people unless you want to join a cocky and arrogant bunch of people.

1. Merge n sorted lists
2. Find k most occurring elements in an array
3. Given a list of intervals of guests arriving and leaving (start time and end time), find the time with the maximum number of guests.