[musicale]

> the “one weird trick” kind where you’re expected to discern the best possible solution to a problem on the spot and in a pressurized situation.

Those were (and are) absolute rubbish; "in 20 minutes please come up with something that took [Knuth, Dijkstra et al.] years to come up with."

Fortunately AI seems to have killed them (leetcode interviews, that is - Knuth is very much alive and seems to be happily coexisting with AI [1].)

Disclosure: I did enjoy Google Code Jam as a fun thing (even though AI killed it as well), but it's useless as a model or method for hiring.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47306926