Looking back, I’m relieved to have declined the offer after grappling with a tough interview process. It began with a rigorous technical round where I was asked to implement a thread-safe in-memory order book. The moment I started coding, I recognized the problem from a prachub.com drill I’d completed just days earlier, which was a lucky break. The interview included system design questions focused on scalability and performance as well. While challenging, I appreciated that it pushed me to think critically about real-world applications.