I was contacted by a recruiter through Naukri.com (23/09/2025) for a potential opportunity. The initial screening round lasted about 15 minutes and was conducted by the recruiter.
Following the screening, I was shortlisted for the next stage and asked to schedule interviews. The HR informed me that there would be two rounds only:

Round 1: DSA + Core Java
Round 2: Hiring Manager Round

In the first round(29/09/2025), I was given the flexibility to code in any language, so I chose Python as I’m more comfortable with it. The interviewer shared a HackerRank link during the session and asked to solve problems:

Problem 1: Count least possible steps to create zig-zag array.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66014371/count-least-possible-steps-to-create-zig-zag-array

Problem 2: Count Analogous Arrays.
https://aonecode.com/Interview-Question/Count-Analogous-Arrays

Unfortunately, I couldn’t fully solve both problems(all testcases not passed) during the interview, which led to a rejection at this stage.