[hintymad]

This seems a great way for system design interviews.

Interviewer: what do you know about transactions?

Candidate: Transactions can be serializable.

Interviewer: great, tell me the difference between final state serializability and view state serializability and prove that they are the same if neither of them has dead step.

Candidate: yada yada yada.

Interviewer: Can you tell me how to use such concepts in implementing a production database system? Please come with a few short illustrative examples too.

[siva7]

If you want to end up with no candidates, go on.

[tourist2d]

Sounds like a great way to hire academics rather than people with industry experience.

[hintymad]

Yeah, my comment was a half-hearted joke. That said, the idea should work though: ask the candidate of fundamentals in their line of work, and see if the candidate can have coherent understanding of the landscape and can dive into critical details if needed.

[nvarsj]

Reading TFA I actually was reminded of doing system design interviews. It has a pretty similar vibe. Although the interviewers here seemed a lot more lenient than ones I've experienced in tech (Tao saying he "barely passed" kinda confirms it).

Not something fun to go through, that's for sure!

[parentheses]

TFA?

[wheelinsupial]

The fine article… or pick your preferred f word.