Because the recruiter talks we're usually just a pre screen of 15-30 minutes, not something I really needed to prep for. Engineering interviews feel completely different to me.

I don't know, I could've convinced them to your point, I guess I just didn't take the "not a good fit" personally because it was just based on a non-technical person's opinion of my skills based solely on a short conversation. But yeah, you're right probably should've combined them haha