4 ms·

The interview process at this point, at least in Silicon Valley, is broken. There's an arms race between interview "gamers" that memorize all the answers to ev

The interview process at this point, at least in Silicon Valley, is broken. There's an arms race between interview "gamers" that memorize all the answers to every single question out there, vs interviewers that are asking increasingly ridiculous questions. It's naive to think these days that not knowing the answer to a common question, but coming up with the answer will work. It won't. If 9 candidates know the answer right away, and you don't, but you figure it out, do you honestly think the interviewer will care? I've talked to plenty of interviewers at my company and that's the unwritten rule. For example, over the phone, one of my friends was asked to design and give an algorithm to solve a maze. It took 10+ mins just to understand exactly what the interviewer wanted, and at that point, time was up, the interviewer was frustrated, and my friend didn't get the job, even though he's better than me, technically. The only way to interview these days, it to know everything.

regs 15y ago
It was much cooler to be jaded about the interview process last year. But in all seriousness, I'm sure there are companies like the one you described and there are many that aren't that way. I'm certain that your blanket characterization of 'the interview process, at least in Silicon Valley' being broken is incorrect. You don't need to come up with weirder and harder questions. You just want to give them something in a form that they haven't seen before. It makes them listen and think, which is what you're looking for. I always look at an interview to be more like a code review than a unit test: it's not about getting the right answer, it's how you get there that tells me what kind of an engineer you are. In fact, if you get the answer too quickly or jump to it, even if I don't think you're cheating, I need to ask another question or make you explain yourself in depth so I can probe how you got there.

regs 15y ago

It was much cooler to be jaded about the interview process last year. But in all seriousness, I'm sure there are companies like the one you described and there are many that aren't that way. I'm certain that your blanket characterization of 'the interview process, at least in Silicon Valley' being broken is incorrect. You don't need to come up with weirder and harder questions. You just want to give them something in a form that they haven't seen before. It makes them listen and think, which is what you're looking for. I always look at an interview to be more like a code review than a unit test: it's not about getting the right answer, it's how you get there that tells me what kind of an engineer you are. In fact, if you get the answer too quickly or jump to it, even if I don't think you're cheating, I need to ask another question or make you explain yourself in depth so I can probe how you got there.