This was a long interview process, spanning five weeks from the initial contact to the onsite interview.

It started with a typical phone interview. The recruiter mentioned that a computer wasn't necessary, but I was glad I had mine with me, as the first question involved coding a solution for a binary tree problem. The interviewer seemed to expect me to already know the problem statement and didn't even conduct proper introductions. I was also asked to create classes for a file system API.

Next, there was a remote programming test which required coding a working solution to a full problem, including input parsing from a file and writing unit tests, all within 90 minutes. After the test, the recruiter kept me waiting for about a week with no communication before finally informing me that I had been selected for an onsite interview.

For the onsite, I was booked into a questionable hotel where loud construction next door made it difficult to sleep the night before. The onsite day included four interviewers, with one joining last minute via video conference.

The first interviewer asked me to code typical data structure and algorithm problems on the whiteboard, including one involving queues, and also asked questions about multi-threading. I enjoyed interacting with this person, and towards the end, we discussed real-world work challenges.

The next interview was with the hiring manager during lunch. This was the same person who conducted my phone interview and reviewed my remote programming test. We had a good conversation about my interests and his team's projects. I wasn't able to eat much, so we returned to the interview area. With about 15 minutes remaining, he decided to present a dynamic programming problem, again expecting prior familiarity with the problem statement. I couldn't arrive at a solution as I hadn't studied DP before, so he moved on to thread-related problems, which I was able to answer.

Following that, I coded a solution for a design problem, which I felt satisfied with. The interviewer was very helpful, made no assumptions about the problem area, and provided clear requirements. The first three interviews involved the most whiteboard coding I had done in a single day.

Next, a remote interviewer presented a complex network planning problem, stating it was open-ended and that they were interested in my thought process. I was not entirely satisfied with my responses. Afterward, they began grilling me on distributed systems (specifically a distributed file store), asking about its creation, maintenance, and high availability. I was satisfied with my overall responses to these questions.

After this, I traveled home on an overnight flight, which made the next day at work very challenging.

I followed up with the recruiter today. She had mentioned they would know the decision the same day or the following morning. She informed me that there were two candidates being considered and the position was offered to the other candidate. It's a bit of a bummer, but oh well.

I feel the recruiter could have been more responsive, and the onsite experience could have been better.

Topics included threads, algorithms, and data structures. There was a design problem and distributed systems. A lot of whiteboard coding occurred, with a focus on correctness rather than syntax.