The technical interview was done through a video call using a shared code platform.
Before the interview, the HR team sent me an email with a lot of topics that could be asked during the technical interview, with an emphasis on understanding mobile apps and networking.
During the interview, I got none of the above. I had PHP questions that went to understanding character encoding on 1-byte or multi-byte, manipulating arrays, and having to look in the PHP doc to find uncommon functions.
Overall that part was interesting and allowed me to show how a candidate deals with the unknown, read the doc, and figure out a solution.
Then there were SQL questions. It was bad.
The questions were gotchas like "This is the 2 tables, find the names and the grade order by date, YOU CAN'T USE JOIN" and another question very similar.
The problem is the questions are done live with another person who keeps interrupting you, looks at you in silence, and does not give very relevant help. At some point, it becomes very uncomfortable having to decypher those "questions".
The contrast between the 2 parts is too much. You go from the PHP part with uncommon problems, having to demonstrate thinking, knowledge of the PHP engine, knowledge of computer science, and demonstrating ability to look into documentation; to a SQL part full of gotchas without any mental space available to think and try different solutions.
I got rejected due to not being able to find the solution to 1 SQL question on time, quite disappointed as I managed to find it in seconds once I was on my own