I have interviewed at many places, but AR has to be the worst experience of them all. First, someone joined the Chime 5 minutes late, and his camera wasn't working either. Took him some time to debug that. First thing he says, "Sorry, but [primary hiring manager] could not make it to the interview today. I will carry on with it on his behalf."
TBH, it felt like they are not interested in hiring at all. As if like they have made their mind to not take this seriously enough.
My past experience matched excatly what they have been doing on the job. Seemed like I had more understanding of problems AR is facing than the interviewer himself. Any how, I talked about myself and how my core interest aligns with their work, and how I like taking leadership in my projects.
He rushed into the technical question. I solved it, although taking some time. I was familiar with it from my deep learning fundamentals. It was nowhere close to any LeetCode problem. He seemed in so much hurry! He did not let me talk openly. I gave him a very scalable code, although higher time complexity. Maybe optimality was an issue. I did mention how I will optimize this code, but he didn't let me finish that code. He inisited "no, we dont have time, so lets stick to this code", Im, "OK"
Then he said, we have used up a lot of time (30 mins) on coding, let us finish off this interview with a behavior question. He asked me that. I answered with one of the instances, which closely align with what they are trying to achieve. Told him how I went a mile further in my assignment.
Things went well. Maybe I could have given him a more optimal solution. He seemed quite uninterested, in fact, absence of the initial hiring manager tells a lot about where their priorities lie. Sad, but I really thought I could have this one.
Good luck to anyone preparing!