- In 2015, halfway through his Computer Science degree, the author applied for a Microsoft summer internship after contributing to open source and admiring their work on TypeScript and C#.
- He naively contacted someone on the job portal and was invited for phone interviews, which he prepared for by studying 'Cracking the Coding Interview'.
- During the interview, he knew the 12-marbles brain teaser from the book but chose to admit it and ask for another riddle, which he couldn't solve under pressure.
- A month after the interview, he received a rejection email, leaving him unsure if his honesty or other factors caused the failure.