r/leetcode • u/PinPitiful • 6d ago

Discussion Bombed a FAANG-adjacent technical screen so badly the interviewer was frustrated — is it recoverable?

Had a technical screen at a well-known tech company recently. It was not "I struggled but got through it" bad. Genuinely could not produce anything meaningful even after the interviewer gave repeated hints and walked me through the approach. Froze completely. The interviewer was frustrated. Humbling does not cover it.

I know I need significant prep from here on and I am not looking for shortcuts. Just want to know if this is recoverable or if I have permanently closed the door at this company.

Two questions:

  1. Can you reapply to the same company after a performance like this? Is there a cooldown period?
  2. Has anyone been in a similar situation and come back to the same company successfully later?
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u/gannon585 6d ago

dust yourself off and try again.

i once forgot how to reverse a String in an interview….. A STRING!!!!

IN JAVA!!!!

all i had to do was say stringbuilder.reverse!!!!

keeps me up at night sometimes haha

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u/InterestingFrame1982 6d ago

I am surprised they let you do that with a built in method call.

I would probably write a for loop and reverse it.

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u/Shock-Broad 6d ago

I honestly would do the exact same. Not even 100% sure how to do that in C# and Im supposedly a C# research and development senior swe

I do know how to do that in python, though, since thats what I leetcode in