The zillow recruiter I was talking to was very nice and informative before the phone screen. The phone screen itself was a negative experience.
The 60 mins tech screen started off with a tech manager. I don't know if this was the hiring manager or someone else. He had a wonky camera setting that didn't allow my to hear him. His level of preparedness thus far showed that he doesn't conduct many interviews. Anyway, he went ahead to give me a LC hard problem which I had earlier told myself, wouldn't be asked in a tech screening round. Woof. But what do you know, it was asked. I couldn't believe it, although, I wrote a partial code and actually ended up giving him the TEXTBOOK algorithm of how it would work!
I was both impressed I nailed the algorithm without knowing it before hand, and upset that a long, hard and windy question was asked so early on in the process and I got knocked off. I think I barely would have got the code to work even if I had done that questions before.
Honestly, the way it was conducted, the interviewer was disconnected from the normal interview process. Seemed like he opened leetcode of most asked zillow questions, pointed at the screen blind folded to land on this question.
After a couple of days, recruiter sent a rejection email.
To Zillow and fellow interviewers who work there, stop trying to be an elitist, it's not anyone's first preference to work with you anyway.