During the live coding part of the interview, I tried several times to clarify the problem they gave me. Each time I asked for clarification, the question was mostly repeated as “it is what it looks like,” and the whiteboard was written on and wiped many times. The way the problem was described felt vague, and it took until about the fifth time I asked before it was finally clarified how the data would actually be fed into the system. Once that was clear, I was able to complete the coding part, and I was told that this was a real problem they had faced and that they solved it in a similar way.
After that, they asked which programming language was my “primary” one. I explained that I have worked with many languages and focus more on core software engineering fundamentals rather than being tied to a single language, but that they were welcome to ask any language-specific questions. They chose not to continue and instead advised me to “get a primary language.”
In my opinion, this approach felt misaligned with how modern teams usually work in 2025, where understanding fundamentals, problem solving, and the ability to adapt across languages are often more important than memorizing syntax or specific libraries. Overall, the interview atmosphere felt more competitive than collaborative, and did not give me the sense of a supportive team environment I would look for in potential colleagues.