i wouldn't sweat it. people design those interviews to make them feel better about themselves rather than as an effective way to gauge someone's aptitude to work there.

you'll notice that none of these places that ask these types of questions allow the candidate to ask them technical questions. it's always a one way street. there's times where i have "failed" interviews of this type when i could guarantee i have "simple" questions that they couldn't answer about software and programming.

> i wouldn't sweat it. people design those interviews to make them feel better about themselves rather than as an effective way to gauge someone's aptitude to work there.

Same reason I dislike that sort of interview. Of course the thing to do is to throw in a spanner.

"Hmm, so I guess you didn't read about the Modified Banach-Wiles-Kolmogorov algorithm? I thought that was where we were going. Ok let's do it your way."

Throw this bomb on the way out, of course.

I don't think I've ever had an interview where it would have been okay to quiz the interviewer on technical topics...could you explain a little better?

there's a couple things. why is it not okay? as a potential employee, you want to be sure that they have an inkling as to what they are doing and aren't just asking questions out of the "interviewing at google" book. i am not actually arguing that interviewees ask these questions (see below), but it is something to think about. i usually try to ask some questions that give me a sense of how big of a mess their software is. at one of the places i failed the final interview, i wasn't ever shown any code or product that they were working on but had a sense it was a bit of a mess with a bunch of smart people writing code with no hands at the wheel.

i have the perspective that these types of puzzle questions by the interviewer are pointless. and i was getting at the point that the interviewee asking similar pointed questions would be similarly useless. because it's easy to take that high and mighty stance instead of having a conversation. it creates an artificial environment that doesn't really exist in actual working environments.

and i generally feel that companies are far too arrogant in their hiring process. they very much create a one way dialog as if you should be thanking them for even interviewing you. they act like "we don't need you, you need us". it creates a very bad taste in my mouth, and even if i was to be offered employement by such companies, it is possible i would turn them down unless i am convinced that their work environment is distinctly different from their interviewing process.

Presumably they wouldn't be employed there if they couldn't pass the interview though?

I don’t know how long ago, but in my experience of interviewing with Jane Street (at least as an intern), they were pretty upfront about the lack of expected OCaml experience, and I was able to complete all of the on site interviews in a language of my choice. The HR/recruiting team seem eager to improve their process based on people’s feedback, so maybe this is something that took time to get right.

I don't blame the engineers at all. I thought the questions were fair and not gimmicky, just unusually difficult. I failed because I was straight out of college and it was my second real interview ever. The only issue was that the HR person was very misinformed and put me a little off balance.

Yeah likewise I hadn’t done a many real interviews before this so I guess I have nothing really to compare it to. I ended up with entirely programming questions rather than generic brain teasers, so maybe there’s a bit of a mixture of questions asked.