I had a single technical phone screen with the hiring manager for an OS development role. The interview started with questions about my OS dev experience and knowledge of internals. For context, I’m a Linux kernel contributor, regularly patch OpenWRT, have formal training from the Linux Foundation in kernel development, and contribute to SerenityOS, an open-source x86 hobbyist OS. So, OS development is definitely in my wheelhouse. Then he asks, “What happens when you call malloc?” Perfect, I dive into the technical details—explaining how it’s handled by `libc`, potentially calling `sbrk()` or `mmap()`, trapping into kernel space, with the MMU mapping pages, and possibly involving the page fault handler. It’s an OS dev interview, so I go into the nitty-gritty. But he cuts me off, keeps repeating, “No, what happens when you call malloc?” without any further clarification. It felt like he was looking for a much simpler answer—maybe something like “you get a pointer to memory”—but I was genuinely confused given the technical nature of the role. I mean, this was a position for _OS internals_. The communication just wasn’t there, and it made the whole conversation feel frustrating. Curious about the interviewer's background, I checked out his LinkedIn afterward. Turns out he’s been with Intel for over two decades. Maybe that explains some of the disconnect—a bit rusty after lounging at a single company for your entire career. Then, out of nowhere, I was told that if hired, I’d have to stop contributing to open-source projects. That was a deal-breaker for me, especially in a field like OS development where open-source contributions are so valuable. Overall, it was a very odd experience, entire thing felt like a fever dream.

Applied online. Got an email to setup a 1 hour long phone interview. This interview went pretty good. The interviewer was very friendly and helpful. He said me on the phone itself that I should be getting an onsite request soon. Then pretty soon (1-2 days) received an onsite request. Got a reject after one week after a follow up email. Phone Interview: 1) C Program for classical synchronization problem. Solved. 2) How to check the endianness of a system. 3) How to check in which direction the stack is growing? 4) Some other simple C and OS related questions. 5) Discussion on team's work and work expectations from the candidate. Onsite Interview: 1) Interview 1: - Discussion on project 1. - Discussion on MACROs and inline functions - Explain everything that happens between when a key is pressed and a letter is displayed on the terminal. - Discusison on project 2. - Virtual Memory Management 2) Interview 2: This was a complete mess. The interviewer didn't have any specific questions in his mind and was trying to belittle the candidate at every answer. He asked what discussion did take place in interview 1 just to make sure he won't be asking the same questions all over again (made sense!). He ended up asking the same questions all over again! He asked me the need for memory management. The entire interview was revolving around the same topic for about 50-55 mins. Then he asked me about some assembly level program. Everytime I tried to answer the question correctly, he would confuse me with his smug face and he would tell me that it's incorrect. I'm rating the entire interview process Negative because of this dissappointing interview. Interview 3: Interviewer didn't show up! They later assigned a new interviewer who also never showed up! (Never expected this kind of behavior from Intel) Interview 4: This was the lunch interview with the team's manager himself. He was very polite and considerate. Told me about all the open positions and what are they looking for in candidates. He asked me some basic questions about code reviews and code testing (pretty basic). Interview 5: This interviewer was super intelligent I must say. He asked 2 codes - bit manipulation and number swapping. Asked me the math behind the number swapping. Asked me to reduce the total # of bit manipulation operations to 15 from around 250 (How?). Asked me very deep questions about interrupts, system calls, page faults, breakpoints, etc. Although the last interview was hard, I managed to answer correctly. After a follow up email, got a reject.