Those puzzles might serve an ancillary goal of finding people willing to conform, are good at doing what they are told and have the ability to do unconventional

Those puzzles might serve an ancillary goal of finding people willing to conform, are good at doing what they are told and have the ability to do unconventional programming tasks on a whim. All of those are characteristics that the company might be looking for. In short those tests aren't checking for just aptitude, they are checking for the personality characteristics of people willing to do them and tolerate the absurdity - like a cult. I once applied as a JavaScript developer to a local company and they gave me a test in Cake PHP. This was after a face-to-face interview with the owner. I finished most of it but their was one thing I couldn't figure out. His response via email was along the lines of " You really should learn this stuff". This was after answering a bunch of granular questions about JavaScript and passing those preliminary questions. But I guess its my fault and I "really should learn this stuff" (j/k) :/