> Write a function that determines if a number is prime. If they didn't know what a prime number was, we would tell them.
Did you also give them an algorithm to implement or was a brute force method good enough?
Re:The Programming Interview from Hell
by scarface74 on Monday February 20, 2017 @07:56PM
(#13692383)
First the brute force algorithm. Then we would ask them how could they optimize it. A lot of people couldn't even get to the brute force algorithm.
1st level optimization: skip even numbers.
2nd level optimization that I was the only person to get when I had to interview for the company: loop starting at 2, and go the square root of the argument.
1. Write a function that determines if a number is prime. If they didn't know what a prime number was, we would tell them.
2. A simple problem that required designing a database schema and sql query that involved a left outer join.
There were a lot of developers who couldn't do it.
On the other hand, there was one developer who was just learning c#, who had spent most of his time doing VB.net, couldn't answer a lot of the technical questions but we could tell by his thought process and how he explained real world problems he solved that he would be a great asset to the company. We fought for him over more "senior" developers.
When I have a chance to hire again, I'm going to fight to get him -- even though he sucks at interviewing and i might have to do a little convincing.