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To be fair, the reddit post was about a DevOps applicant being asked a single dynamic programming questions for the interview. It's as if you asked an auto rep

To be fair, the reddit post was about a DevOps applicant being asked a single dynamic programming questions for the interview. It's as if you asked an auto repair mechanic about designing involute tooth profiles on fishbone pattern gears in a transmission. Sure, if they could do that, then yes they'll be a great technician, but it has nothing to do with brake jobs and oil changes. EDIT: Per the responses in the reddit thread, the question was: "So basically it was a variation of the exact change problem (I realized afterwards). You had to validate a string of size n. 1 chunk of 8 characters could have 1 format, 1 chunk of 16 characters another, and 1 chunk of 24 characters another. You essentially had to determine if the string was valid. So in other words, find a combination of these sizes in which the string could be validated. I had 30 minutes."

kd5bjo 7y ago
We don’t know what expectations were set in the interview for the solution space, but anyone with (Unix) ops experience should have the thought “grep can do that” pop into their head. And people with a formal CS education should be able to come up with the dynamic programming solution. So, whichever side of dev-ops you lean to, there’s a reasonable answer that should be within your field of expertise. And given Palantir’s line of business (the company involved), I wouldn’t be surprised if dissecting a byte string with limited information about it’s structure comes up from time to time in their actual work.