[myrandomcomment]

The problem is not unsolvable. I though I said that. Sorry if that was unclear. It is just caused by something that is pretty far down the stack which you would never know unless you have seen the problem. Once again this was to see if the canidate could think and problem solve. How far down could they get? Could the test for the obvious answers? If they got stuck and I gave them a hint could they go further? I would look at the background on the resume and say "so you worked with X before right? So you know how X has this behavior? This is similar."

There was no arrogance here. The job REQUIRED critical thinking and problem solving. Resumes are generally bullshit and unless you have a major public project were this quality is shown how do you test for it?

The first person hired that had to answer this question and go through this was me! I did not get the answer. I got real close. I am really glad I did. That job changed my life. The quality of the people I got to work with was a complete eye opener and made me want to do better and frankly made me a better person.

The company is now worth ~11B or so and everyone made money and was well cared for.