[blacktriangle]

If you can't handle the level of theater that is reviewing basic CS concepts that we all could afford to be more aware of even if we don't need to remember them day to day, you're really not going to survive the level of theater that dealing with a large organization requires.

[dmingod666]

When Google had gone down a while back, someone had commented:

"Have they tried try to invert a binary tree and see if it solves the problem?"

[AlexC04]

There is a better way. We're (mostly) hackers for bleep's sake. You don't think that this is something that we can disrupt?

The only reason we accept it as the status quo is that people accept it and say "this is the way it is"

If you look at Goldman Sachs or Microsoft, BOTH are investing heavily in tuning their recruitment process to identify and hire neuro-atypical people.

It is a business strategy that is paying off.

Who's to day the kinder & gentler process they design couldn't be just as easily be applied to hiring in neuro-typicals.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside-microsoft/c...

https://fortune.com/2019/12/07/autism-aspergers-adhd-dyslexi...

It doesn't change because it hasn't changed. Not because it can't.

[ThrowawayR2]

> "We're (mostly) hackers for bleep's sake."

Ironically, the old-school hackers who made the word "hacker" famous, like the ones who built the UNIX ecosystem before Linux was even a thing, knew their CS fundamentals like the back of their hand. They'd have zero trouble with the coding aspect of these interviews.

Very few people on HN are hackers.

> "If you look at Goldman Sachs or Microsoft, BOTH are investing heavily in tuning their recruitment process to identify and hire neuro-atypical people"

That's just a publicity stunt. I'd bet money that few of the neuro-atypical they hire last long in those places.

[AlexC04]

I don't know that I'm terribly interested in gatekeeping who can call themselves a hacker.

Like I'll agree that there definition of hacker in 1983 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames is different from the one we generally buse today, but the world has changed a lot in that time.

Did white-hat exist in '83?

The definition of hacker has evolved from "one who uses computer tools to gain illicit access to protected computer systems" to "one who makes shit work and does cool stuff"

If you're going to imply that only the 1983 definition is the one anyone can use, I feel like you're going to be off on that island mostly alone.

[joelbluminator]

> knew their CS fundamentals like the back of their hand.

Even if they did, that doesn't necessarily mean they can shuffle an array or flip a BST under pressure on a whiteboard

[foobiekr]

Honest to God, I think current interview practices suck and single out leetcode as particularly corrosive and demonstrating nothing about competence.

But I honestly can’t believe people are acting like reversing a binary tree is hard. This is like something you’d expect high school students with the most basic you data structures knowledge to be able to do.

[joelbluminator]

Once you've seen the solution it looks easy, yes.

[foobiekr]

No. Seriously no.

[JohnWhigham]

Absolute load of shit. What does memorizing data structure algorithms you'll never practically use have to do with navigating company politics?

[blacktriangle]

It signals your willingness to jump through arbitrary hoops.

[pantulis]

So this would be the equivalent to the "how many pianists tuners live in New York?"

[clpm4j]

Absolutely. There is so much pointless bureaucratic BS that has to be done and dealt with at large corps that studying CS concepts seems like a genuinely pleasant experience in comparison.