I interviewed for a remote software engineer (front-end/react) dev position. First round is a discussion with a recruiter on your background and skills. Second round was an hour long technical discussion with 4 engineers. The lead developer discusses the role, asks you the standard 'tell me about yourself' industry question and then hands it off to the other developers. The second developer had pre planned questions and kept asking about kubernetes even after I stated it is at the bottom of my resume because I have dabbled in it with one work ticket and have some experience in it and would like to continue to work with it, I explained my experience with it and he kept going through his pre planned questions without adjusting on kubernetes and eventually sql and non sql databases for the majority of the interview when the job was mainly for a react developer. It ended up feeling like an interrogation and to corner me in a gotcha moment while simultaneously trying to demonstrate his own expertise rather than properly evaluate me. There was only about 15 minutes left by the time the interview reached the third developer and he didn't come off as friendly or personable at all. He asked me questions about my projects from college, not work, and generic react questions about state and props and to explain the difference but kept wanting a deeper explanation for a simple answer to the point I had to say in a polite way that I don't know how to explain state and props any clearer to which he gave me a baffled look and the 4th developer laughed on screen. I even gave him an analogy to my work in react panes and the design methods I used and he asked me to explain the analogy which baffled me and at this point the atmosphere felt plain rude. There was 5 minutes left and the 4th interviewer didn't even want to ask me anything. Overall, apart from the tech lead, this was not a pleasant interview, it felt biased, pre-planned, interrogative, honing in on mostly one small part of my resume that I explained was limited and outlined my limits, and also like an opportunity for the interviewers to display their skills rather than evaluate my skills. They seem to want a junior dev to do the work of a senior dev as well with the architecture questions and stating that they wouldn't want me going to a senior dev for help if it was needed, with the pay of a junior dev of course. This is what happens when there are 4 interviewers, too many cooks spoil the soup and your chances of getting hired exponentially decrease. Going off of their attitudes and the companies mediocre reviews, I'm not upset by the result of the interview.

I faced multiple tough rounds, solved problems under pressure, defended my ideas, yet they found gaps. Exhausted but wiser, I walked out rejected—disappointed, but stronger and more prepared.I entered confident, faced complex problems, panel pressure, tricky behavioral questions. Despite effort, they highlighted gaps. Rejection stung, but I left stronger, realizing failure sharpened resilience, preparing me for future opportunities.