US Navy Software Engineer interview experience

I was asked to do something that started with a swim, and then I had to immediately jump into a coding challenge—counting number of islands on a LeetCode-style problem. The whole sequence felt rushed, like the pressure ramped up as soon as the physical part ended.

When the coding section started, I was switching from mental fatigue to pure algorithmic thinking, and that transition was brutal. The coding felt harder than usual because I was stressed and didn’t have the same calm focus I normally would. Even though it was one structured day, it felt like the format kept compressing time