Online Assessment (OA)

I applied through LinkedIn Easy Apply. After a few weeks, I received an OA invite containing 4 DSA problems:

• 2 LeetCode Easy
• 2 LeetCode Medium

First Interview – DSA Round (Early February)

After two months, I received an interview invitation. On Interview day, The interviewer forgot to join the call. I emailed HR, and after 30 minutes, he responded and convinced me to take the interview immediately instead of rescheduling.

The DSA Problem

• After a brief introduction, he gave me a problem:
  • You are given an n × m chessboard with a knight at (0,0). You need to determine if the knight can move to all cells on the board. The knight can revisit cells multiple times.
• I initially proposed a greedy approach:
  • If n >= 4 and m >= 4, it is always possible.
• He asked me to think of another approach to discuss further.
• I suggested using recursion and backtracking.

Coding & Execution

• He asked me to write the code in any IDE and later copy it to his Google Doc.
• I wrote the recursion + backtracking solution.
• He gave test cases, ran the code, and it worked.

Follow-up: No Revisited Cells Allowed

• He modified the problem: Now, the knight cannot revisit any cell.
• I modified my existing code with recursion + backtracking.
• The interviewer initially thought my solution was incorrect.
• I did a dry run, and he realized it was correct.
• He ran test cases again, and the code worked fine.

After 1 hour, HR sent an invite for a Machine Coding Round.

Second Interview – Machine Coding Round

Poor Communication from the Interviewer

This was one of the worst interview experiences I’ve had.

• The interviewer started with brief introductions and asked about my recent project at my company.
• After I explained a few things, he formed an incorrect perception of my project.
• Because of this, he was asking something, and I was understanding something else, leading to confusion and wasted time (~10-15 minutes).

Machine Coding Task – Low-Level Design (LLD) of Chess

• The interviewer did not clarify upfront what he expected from this round, which added to the confusion.

• I started with requirements, object design, and system flow.

• After 10 minutes, he interrupted: "Just write the classes."

• I started writing class structures.

• After 15 more minutes, he suddenly said: "I only wanted the Chess Piece class."

• Throughout the interview, the interviewer was barely responding.

• He kept muting himself, making it feel like I was talking to myself.

• When I asked, "Does this approach look good?", he only replied: "Keep going, I’m looking."

• After a while, he ended the interview, saying:

  "Your interview is over. Ask me a few questions if you have."

Due to the poor experience in the second round, I was rejected.