[ajkjk]

yeah, that's wrong. I don't only want good code. I want a smart person who can write code and also do a bunch of other things, like make good decisions about code and mentor other people to write good code and fix problems before they happen and keep everything maintainable and clean. How you come up with your code per se is secondary, yes, but I'm testing for a bunch of other things that are not secondary as well.

[realsed]

Curious. What skills from the "return all elements from a matrix in a spiral order" make you a good mentor? Or say something about your skills keeping code clean?

[ajkjk]

None, but a) if you can't write that trivial code I don't want to be on a team with you anyway because I'm going to be teaching you how to basically think, and b) the part where you talk about the code, not the part where you write it, is the part where I try to detect if you're any good at communication or abstract thought.

(disclaimer: all of this is notwithstanding the fact that some people's brains shut down specifically during interviews/places where they feel under pressure, which I have nothing but sympathy for. Afaik that's an unsolved problem with coding interviews. I would always try to lower their stress but it is not a sure thing.)

[auggierose]

I don't know what "elements from a matrix in spiral order" is supposed to mean. If it is that for the matrix

    A B 
    C D
    E F

you are supposed to return A B D C E F, then if you cannot do this, I don't care about how clean your code is.

[ikiris]

https://leetcode.com/problems/spiral-matrix/description/

If you ask me a question like this, I'm going to judge your company pretty harshly.

[auggierose]

Thanks for the link, but I don't see a problem with that question. If you find it difficult, I wouldn't want you anywhere near the code base of my (hypothetical) company. So I guess the question would be doing its job just fine, for both of us.

[ikiris]

I didn't say it was difficult, but man you sound it with that additude/arrogance.

[ajkjk]

Isn't the answer "sure, seems trivial, let me do that in ten minutes for you"?

[dario_od]

I'm really against leet code interviews in general as a concept.

Having said this, I'd never hire a person that's not able to reason about this. Actually writing the implementation is really secondary