The interview consisted of four rounds: coding, data structures, system design, and a hiring manager interview.

The system design round with Luvkush was a very poor experience. The interview was neither engaging nor helpful. He asked a highly specific question related to his team's product. It took a significant amount of time to grasp the context of the problem statement, and it did not resemble a typical system design round. It felt more like a low-level design round, which was unexpected. It appeared that only candidates with prior knowledge of their product could succeed in a one-hour timeframe.

I was very disappointed by the calibration of the interview questions. A system design round should focus on high-level design questions.

Fortunately, the interview panel offered another opportunity to retake the system design round with a different interviewer. This time, I performed well and addressed all agreed-upon functional and non-functional requirements. Surprisingly, the interviewer provided negative feedback during the debrief, stating that I had missed some non-functional requirements. I clearly recall obtaining sign-off on all the requirements I planned to cover, and the interviewer never indicated any alternative expectations. This was disheartening, especially as I was anticipating an offer.

A Low-Level Design (LLD) type question was asked in the SD round, which was specific to the team's product. The team needs to calibrate its questions well and review them before asking such questions in the interview.