2 ms·

You're still not getting it. Even for BFS, which is not a hard problem, the current state of the market is that enough people have memorized the BFS recipe so t

You're still not getting it. Even for BFS, which is not a hard problem, the current state of the market is that enough people have memorized the BFS recipe so that the interview doesn't allocate much of any time to it. You're not going to have/be given time to "just derive the algorithm" or "solve problems simply, quickly, and elegantly." You're competing against rote speed, which, if you don't implement BFS all day or haven't recently done interview prep, you don't have and you're definitely going to fail. I've heard people actually defend these useless interviews on correlation grounds, like people who are docile, follow the herd, and "prepare" are good hard-working workers who also tend to have done well in school or look polished in other aspects of life. That's what these interviews are really looking for. So, if you're not a well known expert, suck it up, be a servile cog and follow the script.

skybrian 8y ago
It seems like there might be a middle ground, like being willing to play the game, that doesn't imply being "a servile cog?" The trick seems to be knowing when the game is worth playing. There are certainly situations where competition is too fierce and requires too much preparation, so it's not worth doing if you don't really enjoy the game. I'm not sure getting hired at a large tech firm is quite that competitive, though? They do hire lots of people all the time.