| > Would this pass your interview process or not? Yes, that sounds very reasonable. > Do you want someone who's going to brute force an answer to your toy problem and think they've solved it with something that works but is inefficient, or someone who has memorised a collection of standard answers but maybe can't improvise something new, or someone who is going to check what's already available to save time, or someone who can improvise a super-efficient answer and do it even if it's not needed? First of all, let's talk about what I don't want. I don't want someone who can't solve the most basic problems. I'm not interested in all these details at this point in the process. Don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. > Do you really think this question has a simple answer? No, but it's not the question I am asking. My question would be, can you solve basic problems? I'm not looking for 100% accuracy in testing, that's impossible. Surely some kid fresh out of college will get an "unfair advantage" with something that's still on their mind, while some genius may have a bad day and fumble the test. I wouldn't personally pick BFS as a test either, but the fact that you should be able to solve it remains. The fact that "you may never need it" is irrelevant. |
For all software businesses there is only one question to ask candidates: "Can you help us ship working software that solves the problem of our customer"
What I can tell you is that there are a number of books written on this subject if you need help identifying the correct interview questions to ask.