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It's not about discounting people who have prepared, what I'm looking for in an interview is: (1) Does this person approach problems in a systematic and logical

It's not about discounting people who have prepared, what I'm looking for in an interview is: (1) Does this person approach problems in a systematic and logical way, (2) do they ask the right questions to clarify the task, (3) can they explain to others how their thought processes work, (4) can they formalize a discussion into a written description of the problem, (5) can they discuss in detail the nuances of their solution and relate that back to real world situations. If I ask a question and the candidate knows the most optimal solution then it's very difficult for me to assess most of those questions - because they aren't actually thinking through the problem, they're just remembering the solution and I primarily want to hire people who can figure out solutions - even if takes them a little bit longer, because it's indicative of their ability to actually go beyond what's already established in the field.

mattnewton 8y ago
We may be just using different definitions for what it means to prepare / know the solution. Most of the “thinking through the problem” in my experience is mapping the problem to a known class of problems which you have tools for. This is what software engineering is often, making entirely new and untested patterns is rare in my experience (and if it isn’t that could be indicative of an opportunity for improvement). And someone who has studied more will have more examples to map it to, and will likely do so faster. Disregarding a candidate because they have more examples and recognized them faster than someone who had to work through it from first principles is disregarding a candidate who will often provide you an industry standard solution for one who may be unaware someone has solved this problem already. It also seems to be an unrealistic goal, since most engineers I know who do work through things from first principles don’t do so with observers on a whiteboard in 45 minutes.

mattnewton 8y ago

We may be just using different definitions for what it means to prepare / know the solution. Most of the “thinking through the problem” in my experience is mapping the problem to a known class of problems which you have tools for. This is what software engineering is often, making entirely new and untested patterns is rare in my experience (and if it isn’t that could be indicative of an opportunity for improvement). And someone who has studied more will have more examples to map it to, and will likely do so faster. Disregarding a candidate because they have more examples and recognized them faster than someone who had to work through it from first principles is disregarding a candidate who will often provide you an industry standard solution for one who may be unaware someone has solved this problem already. It also seems to be an unrealistic goal, since most engineers I know who do work through things from first principles don’t do so with observers on a whiteboard in 45 minutes.