highly technical interview with emphasis on low-level software tricks and tips in C programming for ex. compute next highest power of 2 in O(1) time, given a pointer to elem in singly linked list delete the elem in O(1) time, find largest palindrome in string, print binary representation of number, multiply two numbers using just shift and add, find first occurence of a number in an array with duplicates, find missing number in array of size N containing numbers from 1 to N only, iterative solution to computing fibonacci series, largest sum of consecutive numbers in an array with negative numbers, average/worst case time complexity of heapsort, mergesort and quicksort, which sorting will you use and when etc.,

Twice it had happened. F5 hr (first time) or third party consultants (second time) first take ctc and expected ctc over phone, then start scheduling interviews. After successfully clearing 3-4 rounds of discussions, HR will call and ask for expected ctc and try to offer less than our current ctc (not sure how they expect anyone can accept ctc less than their current ctc) and they say it is crossing our range for the role. Firstly they know their range for role and our ctc and expected ctc then why do they waste others time and energy. Second time I clearly told recruiter that schedule the discussions only if they are fine with expected ctc. Recruit can reply to this review and can tell that my expectation is too high and unrealistic. For those people I had expected 8-10% over my current ctc.