HR emailed me a link to two tests: a lengthy IQ test and a shorter personality test.

HR then scheduled a pair programming interview. (Still no contact with a human being).

The description of the programming interview was that we would pair up to solve a real-world problem.

When I joined the programming interview with an engineer, he told me to use ChatGPT or Google any resources if I wanted, as much as I needed, and then asked me to code an LRU cache.

It was not a pair programming interview, but rather me leveraging online tools as much as needed. I was caught off guard because I was never told about this setup before this interview and did not have time to clear my browser history and ChatGPT history. Plus, I wasn't sure how me Googling the code for LRU cache directly would affect my interview score, as that would have ended up being a less than 10-minute activity.

(Note: My ChatGPT history had a lot of personal medical questions leading up to this interview).

I told him I knew an OrderedDict could be used to implement an LRU cache in the latest versions of Python, and I didn't want to ask Google or ChatGPT for the exact interview question directly. He said, "ok," and I assumed (incorrectly?) that he was agreeing with my hesitations about using ChatGPT/Googling the direct answer. So I proceeded to only get the API for OrderedDict and somehow used that to finish the LRU cache with 10 minutes left for questions at the end. That is, I never searched for the question directly.

The interviewer did say, "since you got a decent solution, I can sell you on the company," when I asked about the company culture at the end. So I assumed it was a "pass."

The next day, I received a generic "After careful consideration, we have decided not to proceed further with your application at this time. While we recognize your skills and qualifications, our current needs and role requirements led us to this decision" from the HR that I never spoke to once during the whole process.

Implement an LRU cache (least recently used cache).