The Zillow recruiter I was talking to was very nice and informative before the phone screen. The phone screen itself was a negative experience.

The 60-minute tech screen started off with a tech manager. I don't know if this was the hiring manager or someone else. He had a wonky camera setting that didn't allow me to hear him. His level of preparedness thus far showed that he doesn't conduct many interviews. Anyway, he went ahead and gave me a LeetCode hard problem, which I had earlier told myself wouldn't be asked in a tech screening round. Woof. But what do you know, it was asked. I couldn't believe it, although I wrote partial code and actually ended up giving him the textbook algorithm of how it would work.

I was both impressed I nailed the algorithm without knowing it beforehand and upset that a long, hard, and windy question was asked so early in the process, and I got knocked off. I think I barely would have got the code to work even if I had done that question before.

Honestly, the way it was conducted, the interviewer seemed disconnected from the normal interview process. It seemed like he opened LeetCode of most asked Zillow questions, pointed at the screen blindfolded to land on this question.

After a couple of days, the recruiter sent a rejection email.

To Zillow and fellow interviewers who work there: Stop trying to be elitist; it's not anyone's first preference to work with you anyway.

LC question - Word Ladder