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Yeah, it's a terrible interview question because it's just trivia. It's one of those things where the best response may be "I know this problem. It's called tor
by pcwalton 7y ago
Yeah, it's a terrible interview question because it's just trivia. It's one of those things where the best response may be "I know this problem. It's called tortoise and the hare. Do you still want me to do it on the whiteboard?"
- porknubbins 7y agoYeah seems like theres somewhat of a debate over whether you should say “I know this one” on an interview, which I generally would not, but most linked list questions are so much trivia its like you either know it or you don’t. Contrast with a graph problem that I immediately know requires dfs but I can never remember the details so I can honestly put on a convincing show of working them out.
- yakshaving_jgt 7y agoFWIW, a company once FizzBuzzed me in an interview, but with the words Fizz and Buzz substituted with parts of their company name. I told them I recognise this as FizzBuzz. They told me I am overqualified.
- xena 7y agoI got it but called SnoopDawg once. I miss California.
- bfrog 7y agoAh yes the dreaded overqualified reasoning
- 52-6F-62 7y agoOof. Note to self, don't display too much [basic] knowledge in interviews...
- logfromblammo 7y agoNext time I do a FizzBuzz, I'm going to add a printline("duck") to the beginning, just to see if anyone tells me, "That looks great. Just one thing--get rid of the duck." If they don't, I'm walking out.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoI tried that at Amazon interview where the interviewer gave me the “Alien Dictionary” problem unmodified. Calling her out on it wasn’t wise, as I’m sure she torpedoed my chances while still doing decent on the rest of the loop.
- saagarjha 7y agoI consider that to be a fairly reasonable interview question. If you're polite about it ("I've seen this one before, would you still like me to show it to you?") I can't see why anyone would penalize you for it.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoI think she was surprised that this was a standard interview question? None of the other interviewers did a Leetcode question.
- codingslave 7y agoIt is a standard question
- slumdev 7y agoAn Amazon interviewer once gave me the word ladder problem unmodified. I am not a recent college grad, and I don't encounter a lot of interesting algorithm problems in my work, so I had prepared by working through some leetcode problems. But I had worked through only "easy" and some "medium" problems because I had the impression they didn't ask the harder ones. I was able to recognize it as a BFS graph problem and gave the time complexity (and space complexity, IIRC), but I did not finish it on the whiteboard. Live and learn. Maybe I'll have another go in six months. Can't argue with the money and the resume cred.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoAmazon really isn’t that prestigious. Only work there if they have a job that interests you.