The interview consisted of technical theory, refactoring tasks, and a live coding session. I answered every question except one tricky question, for which I explained how I solved it reactively. I wrote a working solution to the live coding question, executed it successfully, and explained it thoroughly. The session extended well past the scheduled time, showing my level of engagement. The interviewer insisted that my working solution was “wrong”—despite running successfully and producing the correct result. For what was framed as an open-ended problem during refactoring, he was clearly expecting a very specific, rigid solution and a textbook answer, which defeats the purpose of open-ended questions entirely. The final feedback was vague and generic—no constructive input, no actionable advice, just a throwaway line that I “lacked strong technical skills,” which blatantly ignored the fact that I implemented and ran a working solution in front of them. Stop dismissing valid, working solutions just because they don’t match your internal answer key.