TripAdvisor Software Engineering Intern Interview

Interviewed Dec 2011 in Newton, MA (took 4+ weeks)

I submitted a resume through Scienceworks (the recruiting website of my university). Maybe 2 months later I got an email from TripAdvisor saying they'd like to do a phone interview. Surprised, I gladly accept and make an appointment. The time comes, and I don't get a call. An hour later, I get an email for a reschedule. The second time, the same thing happens and they send me an email right before telling me they have to reschedule again.

So finally, the third time, I actually get a phone interview with them. The interviewer is one of their engineers, and he has a thick (French?) accent that I could barely understand. After some difficulty, he gets me started on a coding problem online. I have some trouble understanding what exactly he wants me to do, so I sit there a while, coding for maybe 30 minutes, until it's clear to both me (and him) that I don't really know what I'm doing. So I stop. He asks me to explain what my algorithm does (which was hard to do given that I didn't finish), as well as the Big Oh.

Naturally, I get an email right afterward saying they will not be proceeding with my application, thanking me for my time, and that I need to get a bit more coding experience.