(1) Be genuinely thankful that you got the level of detailed feedback that you did. Many employers love to basically go dark on candidates after they decide th

(1) Be genuinely thankful that you got the level of detailed feedback that you did. Many employers love to basically go dark on candidates after they decide they don't meet the bar (or don't make the unanimous team vote, whatever). To get either a simple "Thank you, but No" with no detailed feedback -- or, quite often, no follow-up of any kind at all; just crickets -- isn't the exception; it's almost become the general rule. (2) That said, do take what they're saying seriously, but feel free also to take it with a grain of salt. Generally, interviewers greatly underestimate the effects of stress (the fact that interviews are typically quite dreadful experiences for many candidates) and the sheer cognitive overload of parsing the problem statement, explaining your thought process to a person you don't know very well (and who may be judging you quite harshly) while you are solving the problem, and crucially, guessing the level of optimization your interviewer is secretly looking for (e.g. maintainability versus quick-and-dirty) have on candidate performance.