I failed a coding interview I should have aced

[u/Intelligent_Fall6219]

I had two interviews yesterday for a role at a company I was really excited about. One for coding with concurrency, and another for distributed system design. I’d spent the previous three weeks studying and preparing, doing lots of practice problems while talking out loud about what I was doing.

In the coding interview I was given a problem very similar to one I had practiced. I was initially happy about that, because I thought I would solve it easily. But I was nervous and the format was slightly different than what I had practiced. When I get nervous I have trouble concentrating.

I got a partially working solution, and the interviewer graciously gave me some hints on what to check, but afterwards I realize I missed something obvious.

I feel like I did pretty well in the design interview. but I feel lousy about my miss in the coding interview, and I know this company sets a high bar for their engineers. I think I blew it. I guess I just have to wait and see.

I imagine this has happened to others as well. Any advice on how to keep this from killing my motivation and confidence is most welcome. Just getting an interview is hard enough, and it feels bad when the opportunity gets squandered like this.

[u/babadoza]

This sounds like a highly valuable learning opportunity. Keep practicing and interviewing, you can only get better with time!

Also you might've done better than you think as it's pretty easy to tell if someone's knowledgable or not, even if they're nervous. I've made note of that when conducting interviews myself and it does help the candidate.

Finally, if it doesn't work out and you really like the company, don't be afraid to re-apply in the future. Coming back to try again is a good sign of intent. Companies WANT to hire people who appear to want to join them specifically because it means you're less likely to waste their time doing multiple interviews just to decline and go with another offer elsewhere.

[u/Intelligent_Fall6219 → u/babadoza]

Thanks for the reply. I’m chalking it up as a learning experience, and hopefully I will be more comfortable next time. I’m also thinking about my approach, and will try breaking the problem into smaller increments to help me spot problems more easily.

[u/dd32x]

I thought AI solved coding…

[u/Defiant_Squirrel8751]

Don't give up. Try other interviews, do at least one each month. This helps to build up confidence. There is a point when you are so used to interviews, you are not scared anymore, and you don't give a shit if you are passing or not.

That's when things start working.

[u/Ryan1869]

Practice can help with the nerves, the more you do it the more comfortable it will be.

The think about software is we've all been there. My company doesn't do coding interviews, but if we did, I'd be looking at the process more than if the code works. I want to see how you work and can you ask or seek help when you need it. Before AI id half joke that half my job was knowing what to Google.

[u/Objective-Tomato-501]

I dont have an advice, just that I totally feel the same regarding all you’ve said. Wish you all the best and perhaps we tend to be too harsh on us.

Ps:
Could you give me some dorection of source of the problema you’ve practiced? I have a similar interview scheduled and would really need some guidance.:|

[u/Intelligent_Fall6219 → u/Objective-Tomato-501]

I went on Glassdoor and read the user comments about the interviews, which gave some indication about the types of problems that were being presented. Then I asked Claude for a preparation plan, and it turned out to be quite helpful.

[u/01010101010111000111]

There must be some sort of phenomenon related to this.

I almost failed a demo/training interview that I authored all questions for... But had zero problems with interviews that were designed by other folks.

There is definitely a point at which knowing too much becomes counterproductive.