[akkawwakka]

Whenever I interview engineers, my main priority, beyond grasping whether they understand the stack they’ll be working with, is gauging how well they can work in an organization of fellow engineers, designers, and product folks to deliver a product and support the larger engineering team.

If they can pass that hurdle, you can almost be certain they know how and when crack open an algorithms textbook or use Google-fu to apply the right algorithm to solve a given problem.

(Knowing which data structures to reach for is far more applicable than being able to apply algorithms from memory. The article is good evidence of that.)

[kristopolous]

I internally have something I call the "scramble score". If I hire someone to say, do some python backend and then a few weeks in I'm like "oh shit, actually this big deal we're doing needs us to get an iphone app together" and I can be like "hey, can you go from python backend to do an iphone app?" and a week or so later I'd have a basic app.

Those people do exist. Really, they think it's a thrilling joyride. Hard to find, but they're real. I look for those and run the team tight and small.