athenahealth Software Engineer interview experience

At one point, I told an interviewer I didn’t know Perl, and instead of just moving on, they tried to teach it to me during the interview.

That made the process hard to read in terms of what was being evaluated. The conversation wasn’t only about problem-solving or coding under constraints—it turned into an ad-hoc learning moment while the interview was actively going on.

The difficulty was labeled difficult, and ultimately I didn’t get an offer. What I remember most is that the dynamic surprised me; I expected the interview to test my skills, but it also involved me trying to absorb a new