[spiderPig]

Oh please let’s not glorify those simple trick questions to be anywhere near as hard or require the degree of intuition that OP or theoretical mathematicians work on.

75% of interview questions can be solved with some form of BFS/DFS and they’re largely a hazing ritual these days. I’m saying this as someone who recently got offers from 4 of the big 5 companies

[jacobolus]

Something only takes “hard intuition” the first time it comes up. For instance, when these data structures were new, inventing them took hard intuition. The second time the same trick is used, it becomes a ‘clever application of an obscure idea’ to a new problem.

Then once the same intuitive leap has been used to solve many different problems, and gets taught in school, it becomes a “simple trick”, or even just a “standard technique”.

If this same method is useful for solving a wide range of structurally similar problems, it will go through that process, and eventually become thought of as a “simple trick”. If it is only used as a one-off for this particular proof, it will remain one man’s genius idea.

[tangentspace]

I've worked through various exams and research problems leading to a math PhD, and I see the similarity. I fail to see how someone articulating an observation about that "glorifies" the interview questions.

I've heard students complain that graduate qualifying exams are a form of hazing for people hoping to become pure mathematicians, and although I don't entirely agree with that sentiment, they do play a similar role in weeding out people based on preparation rather than ability to generate deep, novel insights.