Although I did not reach the interview stage, I was invited to a coding challenge. I feel it is important to know what this challenge means.

It is basically a normal algorithmic problem (nothing much to do, just a sort), but the way the problem is described makes it very complicated. You spend a lot of time trying to understand the question, only to realize that the task is fairly easy. However, the description of the problem is very long and hard to understand, making it difficult to choose the best data structures to use.

They give you raw input, and you most probably have to parse it somehow, and this also takes time.

Overall, the coding challenge was a negative experience for me. I could not complete it within the 75-minute limit.

I would advise you to be very quick with everything, including reading and understanding the problem, and thinking about all corner cases in advance.

Coding challenge on HackerRank.