[nolevels]

This has been my experience as well. These interviews should be open-ended with no right answer as long as you can reasonably support your design and discuss its tradeoffs. Unfortunately, many interviewers have a set solution / structure / technology already in mind.

[michaelrubin]

It takes a skilled interviewer to deal with and evaluate that level of nuance on the fly. It's much easier to scale an interview process with checklists.