I once had to diagnose and fix a bug in a financial system that went belly up under extremely heavy load -- causing the company lose tens millions of $'s per hour (literally). Turned out to be a timing problem caused by satellite comms latency. The solution required us to modify how a couple different algorithmic worked. That situation was highly time sensitive and over-the-top stressful (for me anyway).

I'm sure you would acknowledge that's a very exceptional situation, right? That's the point of this whole subthread: that this kind of stress is exceptional in a work situation.

I would agree that it was exceptional. But I would also argue that how your people perform during exceptional situations is what makes or breaks teams and companies.

No one doubts that performing under pressure is important.

It's the idea that this kind of pressure can in any meaningful way be simulated (and the candidate's response adequately gauged) using the shticks and routines that people try to do in the current standard interview process that people take issue with.

I once spent 2 days troubleshooting a machine vision system at bolt factory. Physically in the factory. On my feet. Standing behind an active vibratory hopper filled with bolts, while stake-holders were losing money hand-over-fist, and angry machinists who looked like a motorcycle gang stood next to me. And it was a Windows NT machine.

Not quite all about algorithms, but that was part of it :-)

Yes, and I've set up a demo of an interactive TV system in a cupboard at a large London hotel (standing room only!)...

Also found that the probability of someone finding the porn in the demo by randomly pressing remote buttons pretty much approaches 1 as number of button presses approaches infinity...