The process isn't set for your success.

First, a meeting with the recruiter. This generic and common interview superficially exposed my experience and the position. This took some back and forth to schedule; I had to share my availability twice.

Second interview with a technical member of the team. This was an MLOps position, so we discussed my background in both Ops and ML. The conversation went well until a technical assessment was mentioned. At no given moment during the previous chats or emails with the recruiter was I told there would be such an assessment.

Nevertheless, I accepted the task and tried to show my thought process while solving the challenge. I ended the challenge proud, as this was the first whiteboard exercise I had done after several years in Ops work. However, the interviewer reproached me, claiming I didn't know the basics of Python. I feel I was penalized for sharing my thought process and questioning the names of libraries (things I could have Googled).

I still fail to see the relevance of such a task for the position. I probably could have done better if prepared. My fault for not asking the recruiter what the next step would be.

Preparing the candidate is key for such challenges. That's where other companies running whiteboard tests succeed, and Tripadvisor fails.

Whiteboard algorithm and Python interview.