Has anyone ever been led off path by an interviewer?
This was my first interview in awhile so it felt even more brutal than I remember. I probably need more reps but it went way worse than expected.
It started off a little abrasive as the interviewer questioned why my current product at my current job was even needed after explaining the use cases. I tried to explain how important the work was but they seemed dismissive to my responses. I tried to take that in stride but it just felt off from there.
After getting the question (deviation of a leetcode medium), I asked some clarifying questions, and explained my intuition. My intuition was right but the interviewer pushed back so hard it made me doubt myself, like I was dumb for using the wrong pattern, that's how hard. I looked it up after the interview and it was the right pattern and solved it. Maybe it was some sort of test to see how I work with my thoughts being challenged, but their responses seemed agitated when I pointed out what I was doing.
I started coding and explaining each line and they start micro managing the code through the coderpad. They were asking so many questions I couldn't possibly explain the code, type, and answer them, so I keep breaking thought and pausing. I end up getting about 75% of the code, using the intuition I originally identified, they stop me with 20 minutes to go and tell me I'm not going to finish.
I stop coding, I ask them some questions, and we end the call 15 minutes early.
I don't know if they were planning to reject me from the start, didn't like my experience, or thought I was an idiot but I've never been pushed that far off track in an interview. I read into it being collaborative type interview but I felt like they were fighting me the entire time. Even if I would have done better I would never have wanted to work with them.
Has anyone ever been challenged that hard during an interview?