> the interviewers hinted that the direction was not what they were looking for No, they said they couldn’t see the utility in what he was doing, which is very

> the interviewers hinted that the direction was not what they were looking for No, they said they couldn’t see the utility in what he was doing, which is very different than being told that his solution is unsatisfactory. I have had countless interviews where I’ve been told that they don’t see where I’m going with something, and when I’m finished they admit (after some time processing) that they are impressed that I came up with such an elegant, simple solution. When asked what they had in mind, it turns out they (initially) thought the optimal solution was some contrived, overly complicated thing. If I let everyone’s interjections derail me, I’d never get through most interviews. Think: have you ever seen a candidate give a crazy, overly complicated solution in an interview? Yes? Well, such interviewees (the ones that write 100+ line Fibonacci functions that look like they might be doing some memoization, but if you squint it turns out they aren’t even using the memo table they constructed) go on to be become interviewers — it shouldn’t be a surprise that many interviewers unintentionally throw candidates curveballs by expressing incredulity in the face of a non-shitty solution. If something is truly a hard “no”, then a “no” must be said — expecting the candidate to guess what’s going through the interviewers head is ridiculous.