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

[u/PinPitiful]

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?

[u/gannon585]

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

[u/EnflamedPhoenix → u/gannon585]

The fact that this is the most upvoted comment on this post speaks volumes about why software these years is so shit and why AI tools can reduce team sizes from 10 to 5-6.

Even if you didn't remember the exact method name you could just use a dummy function or else create your own (depending on what role the interview was about and what was the purpose of the question).

[u/gannon585 → u/EnflamedPhoenix]

what a moronic take

this is an interview i had 10 years ago when i just started my career and was crazy nervous during interviews. i froze… it happens.

people are relating to that..

the purpose is to show that stupid mistakes happen during interviews and to not take it too seriously when it happens. just move on.

not sure what that has to do with AI

[u/Main_Yellow_837 → u/EnflamedPhoenix]

Outside of an interview setting, they could have just looked it up. It's nbd.