An applied AI Software Engineer interview: rushed EV charging design discussion

I got pulled into a Karat-driven stage that felt chaotic and rushed from the start. It was split evenly between system design and a DSA problem-solving block. I was asked to design an EV charging-station app that could find the nearest station and handle payments, and I was pushed to move quickly.

The conversation barely felt like a design discussion. I spent a lot of time on basic whiteboard tool instructions instead of trade-offs. I tried to lay out an architecture with payment handling, location and proximity logic, and user management. I also raised single points of failure and payment idempotency. The interviewer kept returning to a generic component checklist, so I did not get meaningful follow-up on those engineering trade-offs.

For the DSA portion, I was told that an optimized solution was not important, just a quick working approach. I tried to organize a clean approach but was cut off and told to write a simpler function with maps. The time pressure and Java boilerplate made it harder to explore the structure I wanted. It was the worst interview experience I had had in a long time: fast, low on dialogue, and uninterested in extensibility or maintainability. I did not get the offer. I understand that assessments can be strict, but the lack of real interaction made me feel I was not evaluated fairly.

Location: Pune. Overall feedback: negative. Offer status: no offer.