Sohan's post-interview debrief and reflection

On January 2, 2026, Sohan Dillikar updated Ishani Shah on a technical job interview he had just completed. Before the interview, Ishani offered words of encouragement and luck. Afterward, Sohan expressed dissatisfaction with his performance, noting that the content differed from his preparation. He detailed three specific components of the interview: a LeetCode problem where he required two attempts for an 'easy' task, a system design section for a new product, and a real-world code debugging session. Sohan felt particularly poorly about the debugging portion, explaining that he had relied on AI (like Cursor) in his daily workflow and hadn't prepared to debug manually in VS Code. He felt he missed simpler issues because he usually focuses on complex problems AI cannot solve. Ishani attempted to validate his frustration, suggesting that his reasoning about shifting workflows to AI was fair, though Sohan opted not to mention this to the interviewer because the interviewer pointedly avoided AI tools. Ishani remained supportive, encouraging him not to overthink and suggesting his passion likely still came through. Sohan expects to hear back sometime during the week of January 5, 2026. Despite Ishani’s reassurance that he should relax, Sohan admitted he feels anxious and find it difficult to rest until he receives a final decision.