> Oh you've been working in a relevant field for 10 years? Here take this written test first, so we can check how well you can memorize hundreds of random irrelevant algorithms...
I'd walk out, unless it was maybe some simpler algorithm that you can actually figure out yourself by thinking for a few minutes.
I was under the impression that pretty much any FAANG interviews will have significant data structures and algorithms components and/or whiteboarding over Leetcode-like problems. Maybe I am wrong on this.
Outside of FAANG, I've found it's hit or miss, but the smaller the company the less likely you'll have to deal with bullshit hiring practices, at least that was my experience.
> Oh you've been working in a relevant field for 10 years? Here take this written test first, so we can check how well you can memorize hundreds of random irrelevant algorithms...
Yeah, and it's even worse if you don't have a formal CS degree. People always say that it's important to know data structures or algorithms or Big O-complexity so you "don't do something horribly inefficient in production", but in retrospect, I haven't had many problems with performance in real life. When I did have problems, it was usually fixed by modifying a SQL or ORM query. Once I fixed someone's major performance issues just by recommending installing a different package to generate PDF's.
I seriously doubt anyone needs a computer-science degree and deep low-level data-structures and algorithms knowledge unless they are going to be writing databases or compilers or designing programming languages. Most of the time, some common-sense and a handful of "good practice" coding/software eng. rules will do the job.
Disclaimer: I work on typical web/server applications. I'd probably have a different opinion if I were working on life or death software, e.g. medical device software, airplane control systems software.
Had done the normal initial phone interview (overview of experience etc), a take home code challenge (only took ~1hr) then I was asked to come in for a final interview that was to be a 15-20min presentation on project I'd worked on (that related to what I would be doing at the new role) then 15-20min of questions on that project and the technical challenges/solutions. All this sounded great until I got an email the day before informing me the presentation and follow up questions would be ~20 mins total and then there would be a 20 minute whiteboard session on data structures and algorithms.
I retracted my application asap!
Are you sure they didn't just try to steal intellectual property of your last employer? ._.