[rajeshpant]

Also, it depends on the interviewer. I have been on both sides of the table and I can tell that as an interviewer you need to convey these type of questions very clearly. A interview is typically 45 minutes in most companies, where about 5-10 minutes are wasted in introduction etc. You have about 35 minutes and if you waste 15-20 minutes explaining a problem to the candidate and in the end leave the candidate with 15-20 minutes to solve a dynamic programming question, then it is very unfair on your part.

Most companies in bay area have 3-4 whiteboard interview rounds and I have experienced at least 1 interview, at every place I interviewed(FANG and other top bay area tech companies), where the interviewer wasted enough time either explaining the problem.

As an interviewer, it is really important to keep the time aspect in mind and choose a problem which could be easily explained. The problem itself could be hard, but story based problems waste candidate's time and have little value in assessing the ability of the candidate.

PS: I interviewed at one of the tech companies(the one you all know and I won't name), and in one of the technical rounds, it took the interviewer 20 minutes explaining the problem. The problem basically boiled down to finding largest number at any time in a given sequence without sorting the array. The problem had a background story of some cell towers where each tower had a strength and blah blah. The interviewer was also had communication issues.

[monksy]

> where about 5-10 minutes are wasted in introduction etc.

That tells me a lot of concerning things about the organization. If you're considering that it's "wasted time." You're missing out on a lot of important information there.

[xyzzyz]

If you interview at place like Google, introductions only really serve to make the candidate more comfortable. As an interviewer, even if the candidate gets and takes the job, you are unlikely to meet him or her again anyway, in a company so large. The introductions won’t give you any valuable hiring information, because you won’t be serving on the hiring committee anyway, and hiring committee won’t care about your opinion about candidate’s experience. I feel that spending more than 5 minutes on it is a waste of candidates time, time in which they could be showing the skill that is meant to be tested at the interview.

[azinman2]

Or the individual. Large companies are made up of many heterogenous people.