> am I the only one concerned that this would even be a point of contention? This seems too trivial for anyone doing hiring or being hired to be hung up on. Yo

> am I the only one concerned that this would even be a point of contention? This seems too trivial for anyone doing hiring or being hired to be hung up on. You'd be surprised! I've done probably 200+ interviews across a couple companies. Over time if anything my questions have gotten simpler. I look for someone who understands the fundamentals of the stuff on their resume, asks good requirements questions, thinks a bit before leaping into the weeds, can explain their thought process, ideally does some of their own double-checking, and (if it comes up) can debug a problem I spot without my spelling out their error. And last but not least: I don't want to cause a panic attack, which would be mean and tell me nothing. Sometimes my candidates have been too nervous for me to know if I should hire them, and it's not a good experience for anyone. So I make the problem as simple as I can and make sure we get through the rest of that in as relaxed a fashion as I can manage. I'll ask a simple (often first-year CS) coding problem or a design problem, rarely both in the same interview slot. I never ask for tons of code on a whiteboard in a 45-minute slot.