A couple days ago, I went through the most embarrassing interview ever. It was a startup into both hardware and software merged over image processing. I really wanted it. Really really did. It was telephonic, and involved a little bit coding over docs. In the one hour we talked over the phone, he asked me about 30 questions. I hadn't even heard of the words he said! Ive never delved into compilers, lower level things, and memory management. I could answer about 5 questions- including the tell me about yourself question.

So thats about 25 ways I came up with of saying "I don't know" in a span of 60 minutes.

It happens. After that one others will seem easy. Good luck.

I am curious what your take away from that was? And whether any of the more experienced developers have any advice for this?

I'd be tempted to read up on all those questions and try again in a couple of months, but I don't know if that's just destructive...

I had another interview the day after that (this co was a pure software based company so I knew they wont ask me about compilers and memory management and stuff), and I just knew nothing could be as bad as the previous interview. Though im still waiting for the result, it went really well, because I was so calm - just knowing the prev was the worst that could happen helped quite a bit!

I would love to appear for an interview with them for a second time. Though I might not get a call. Yes, I could spend the next couple of months learning - but you know, they're in a field that requires you to do a project and work hands on to actually know the internals. I love what they're doing.

I, like most developers have worked on the application layer for the past 3 years. I haven't gone deep into compilers, and find bit manipulation tricky. Though ive made android apps that have >300K and >50K downloads, I never really dug deep into lower level components of software. I'm willing to do so now.