First, the tone throughout the interview felt condescending. Rather than a collaborative pair-programming environment, it often felt more like being lectured by a professor. This made it difficult to feel comfortable asking questions or thinking out loud.
There were also technical and communication issues that made the interview unnecessarily stressful. The interviewer was seated far from the meeting-room microphone and camera. Because I was screen-sharing, her video was minimized on my screen, and I couldn’t hear or see her clearly when I asked questions. At one point, after I repeated a question, she said, “Don’t you see me shaking my head no?” in a noticeably abrupt way, but the camera setup made that impossible to see.
Additionally, when I asked a syntax question, she gave me an incorrect answer. When I later realized the issue and fixed it, she simply said, “Oh yes, that was the problem,” even though the incorrect syntax came from her suggestion. Later on, I got stuck on another niche syntax issue related to slicing with a step. Instead of guiding me or helping move forward, she let me spend significant time searching for the issue. My understanding is that SWE interviews typically emphasize problem-solving and DSA rather than extremely specific syntax details, so this felt misaligned with standard expectations.
At the end of the interview, she made an off-hand comment along the lines of: “Usually we have time to do these tests, but we definitely don’t have time for that today,” which came across as implying I was much slower than average.
I left the interview feeling talked down to, unintelligent, and discourage, not because I was unprepared, but because of the way the interaction made me feel. It genuinely turned me off from considering future applications to the company, which is disappointing because I was originally very excited about the opportunity.