A twist happened when they announced that using LLMs in a pair programming coding interview round is permitted. I welcomed that news, thought to myself "Well that's a first, they must be true to their AI pivot" and skipped on Leetcode prep as LLMs are faster in implementing leetcode questions than I am at my top typing speed. I analyzed what else it's possible to spend an hour pair programming on if LLM is solving menial coding. I've had some pretty good ideas what excellent signal can be extracted from coding interview without coding part. Well, uplifted, I go into an interview and I get a straight leetcode question (that I didn't practice before). I attempted to use LLM but was stopped "because it would just give you an answer". I was permitted to ask it anything, but nothing that relates to the coding problem itself. I spent a minute trying to understand what use I can get out of LLM with these constraints, and decided to wing the problem myself instead, and failed the interview. In my opinion, the only credible outcome from asking candidates that question can be if they have seen and done that question ever before - it becomes significantly easier if you did. Choice of the coding question also suggests they are not differentiating coding rounds between different pipelines. Pair programming part that was heavily advertised was absent as well. It was just a standard coding interview. I don't mind, companies are free to select candidates in a way they see fit. I do, however, dislike when I have been misled in my preparation efforts especially since this round was advertised so uniquely so I was working on other skills that are not used during standard coding rounds.