Is this not a good language to use? I am more familiar with it and have been applying to SWE roles for a while (I am in devops / sre at the moment and desperately trying to get out).. I feel like I just blew my chances of getting an offer because of this.. I am still shaking a bit, I feel genuinely awful.

I got past the online assessment, which was 2 leet code easy / mediums.. I also used JavaScript there with no issues at all.

Then I eventually moved on to the live coding round where I was asked a Leet Code medium (it was similar to the question "number of islands").

I told him I would prefer to use JavaScript since I am most comfortable with it, and he literally laughed out loud.

I smiled as well because I didn't know how to react, so then I think he thought I was joking and asked me again which language I would prefer to use.

So I told him once again, I am most comfortable with JavaScript and then he got super serious and said that JavaScript is not the language to use for coding problems, he said that I clearly didn't prepare enough or else I would be using a real language.

I honestly didn't know how to react, I am a pretty shy / nervous person in general and I started feeling super embarrassed, I could feel my face blushing.

I asked if I could do it in pseudocode then, but he told me no.

He asked if I have ever used other programming languages, and I told him that I have used Java, C and Python as part of my CS degree but I don't remember them too much.

He kind of scoffed at me and told me to use any of the 3 languages I had just mentioned

So I tried my best to do it in Java, since it's pretty similar to JavaScript in syntax.. but at this point I was so embarrassed and nervous... my syntax was totally off and I could barely even focus on the question or what the solution was.

So I tried my best, and as I was typing it out he basically just kept shaking his head and muttering "no no no" under his breath.

Needless to say I was unable to finish the question and when he realized that, he just told me to stop and moved on to the next part (behavioural questions), which I did terribly on too because I was feeling so bad and nervous.

Before the it ended, he told me next time to prepare better and to actually use a real programming language. I kind of just nodded and said ok thanks.

I have been feeling awful ever since, and to be quite honest with you, I even cried. I just felt very bad and feel like I will not be able to switch to being a SWE any time soon.

​

edit: thank you so much everyone, I am going through your replies and feeling a lot better. I guess I just was unlucky with a bad interviewer. I'm glad this isn't a common sentiment in the industry