Fivetran | Senior SDE Interview | Rejected After HackerRank

• Timeline: About 2 weeks
• Difficulty: Medium
• Overall experience: Negative

Process

HackerRank live coding → feedback two business days later → HR follow-up → no offer

HackerRank Live Coding

The interviewer gave a string decompression problem on HackerRank.

The solution ran in O(n) and passed every test. An edge case that the HackerRank tests missed was also pointed out, together with how it could be handled.

The interviewer then asked another two or three questions.

Feedback

Two business days later, the initial feedback said the solution was too complex and did not work in the end. That did not match the HackerRank result, so an HR follow-up was requested.

During the follow-up, HR said the solution had passed the tests but was not efficient. After that explanation was challenged, the concern shifted to starting too quickly and not spending enough time thinking before coding.

The OP felt that the explanations were inconsistent and left with a negative impression of the process.

Original Question

String Decompression

The task was to decompress an encoded string.

The OP did not include the encoding rules or examples, so there is no confirmed LeetCode match.

Follow-ups

• Explain how to handle an edge case not covered by the tests
• Answer two or three additional questions
• Discuss the solution's efficiency during the later feedback conversation

Result

The process ended without an offer. The HR follow-up did not change the decision.

Source: HelloWorld.rs Fivetran interview review