3 ms·

It’s not complete crap - the cost of a bad hire is a lot more than the cost of missing out on a good one.

• pm 9y ago
  Except that implies that someone who remembers how to invert a binary tree but doesn't have an open track record is a better hire than someone who couldn't remember but created, maintains and improves a popular open source project for YEARS. Working software should be prioritised over rote memorisation of data structure theory.
  • foobarbazetc 9y ago
    It also implies that just because you can invert a binary tree on a whiteboard you’re actually good. That’s debatable but I guess it’s one of N filters. When I interviewed at Google they asked a lot of (at the time) very specific questions about various languages but only 1 “solve this riddle” type question. It was a pretty good experience. The best interview I ever did was with an investment bank where I was struggling to whiteboard some problem (after a string of really tough, challenging problems I did well at) and they let me use a terminal to actually code it up (which I managed to do very quickly). I got that offer. ;)
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]