AppZen Interview Question

I was given the following React/JavaScript coding exercise to complete within 75 minutes. Problem: Build a user table with: Loading data using only the provided fetchUser(id) helper (bulk endpoint was not allowed). Handling invalid user IDs gracefully. Displaying the user ID even though it wasn't returned by the API. Implementing in-memory global search across all displayed columns. Implementing sorting and pagination. A boilerplate project was provided, and the data-fetching helper was already implemented, so the focus was on building the table functionality and client-side data manipulation. The problem required implementing data fetching, handling complex JSON objects, global search, sorting, and pagination within the allotted time. Unfortunately, my interview experience was not positive. Around 25–30 minutes into the exercise, the interviewer repeatedly suggested that I would not be able to complete the problem and implied that I should stop trying. I found this discouraging, as I would have appreciated the opportunity to continue working through the solution and demonstrate my approach. A more supportive and collaborative interview environment would have allowed me to better showcase my problem-solving skills. The coding problem itself was interesting and representative of real-world frontend development, but I hope future candidates are given the full opportunity to attempt it without unnecessary discouragement.