I was told by the recruiter that the interview would focus on computer science fundamentals like Networking, Operating Systems, and Databases. However, the interviewer mostly asked about my current work instead. Then, in the last 10 minutes, he abruptly asked, “What would you consider while building a payment processor/transaction?” — which was extremely open-ended. It was unclear what he was looking for — was it high-level design, low-level design, database transactions, or something else entirely? I spoke about database transactions and touched on some high-level concepts, but he didn’t ask any follow-ups or clarifications. The whole experience felt unorganized, with no clear structure or direction. Ultimately, I was rejected without much insight into what was expected.