After clearing the telephonic round, I was called for F2F in their office.
All the interviewers were quite nice and polite. No one seemed to seemed to show any kind of superiority unlike at most of the places. But some interviewers didn't seem much knowledgeable. And some interviews were just too cliche - not designed to test the actual knowledge of the candidate.
My telephonic round was taken by a 8-10 years experience guy. I was made to write code on a google doc (not necessary compilable). In one question, I had to create a data structure to make functions like insert, delete, update, search and getRandom in O(1) time. I had explained him the approach very clearly and he knew it. I had written the important functions. But, despite being low on time, he made me write all of them; apparently to copy-paste the whole code and show it to someone else. It was then more of a game of typing speed.
After solving two questions, we were left with 2 minutes. He gave me a question on trees (forgot this one). I explained him the approach. He asked if I can code it right then and how long it will take. I said it will take at least 10 minutes. Then, he asked to finish the call.
I was shocked as to why he even asked me to code an industry-level tree question within 2 minutes - though knowing my approach.
Later, I was then called in their office where my time was scheduled for 4 rounds of interviews.
I reached the office half an hour before the first interview. I was in touch with the HR - who was constantly monitoring if I will reach the office on time. But after reaching there, she went to some meeting, and asked me to wait at the reception till the interviewer (not her) comes. So, basically, there was no one to even ask for water for half an hour. Moreover, the first interviewer came 10 minutes late from the scheduled time.
All she had to do was to come outside, show me the interview room and go to her meeting again. Moreover, why did she schedule the meeting when she was supposed to attend me?
Anyways, the interviews began. As I said before, they all were quite polite and really made me feel free to ask anything. I was also served lunch from their side in the interview room.
But I had some issue about the manager's round. The manager apparently seemed to be unnecessarily influenced by the west. I don't know why but just after he entered the room, he called me by my surname - XYZ. "is it XYZ or ABC?" (assuming my name is 'ABC XYZ'). The point is we belong to the nearby regions and he must have known what's my first and last name. I felt a lack of genuineness there.
He asked me about my current role, discussed an algorithm and a design question. But the worst thing - he started assessing my personality by asking - "what's the most stressful situation you faced in your company".
Truthfully, I never faced any stress in my company but does it mean I had no tough work? Or does it mean that I am used to such situations? I faced the actual stress in my academics where I was not sure if I will be placed in a good company. But I didn't want to tell him because he wanted to drill down to code and the exact problem I faced. So, I discussed my company project with him. My projects are confidential and there is a limit that he wanted to cross. He didn't seem to respect that privacy.
"no no, that's doesn't sound like stress. tell me a situation where you really felt like 'if i don't do this, this will happen'"
I don't think these are the questions that should be asked. It's good to prepare for failures but it was more like looking down while climbing a mountain.
The funny part being - he was talking about stress and deadlines but he was himself 10 minutes late to the meeting. In fact, every interviewer was 10-15 minutes. People who handle the stress he was talking about are concerned about a single minute.
To be frank, I was not able to handle that question very well. I didn't know whether to tell him that he should not ask this question or continue with phrases like 'there was a project with a deadline...'
Another thing I noticed was his periodic glance at his watch while I am talking. I don't want anyone to do that especially when he is late. It makes me wonder in how much detail I am supposed to answer.
Advice: If you really want to know if someone can handle stress, ask him about his personal situations - how he handles that. Moreover, also ask him if he wants to discuss that. You have an advantage if the candidate is nearer to your culture.
Advice to senior-most management:
Please assess interviewers like these - they might be filtering away the best candidates (not me, of course, but others).