> I've been in this spot a couple times, and one thing I found helpful was to ask if I could do the question in a language of my choosing This is a great strat

> I've been in this spot a couple times, and one thing I found helpful was to ask if I could do the question in a language of my choosing This is a great strategy and, as you say, if they say no you've learned something useful. When we interview we always make it clear to the candidate that they can pick a language with which they're familiar. We tend to ask for "C-like" at the application stage but have some flexibility around imperative/OO languages. E.g., Python or Ruby might be OK, as might JavaScript.