Re:Why 37signals Doesn't Hire Programmers Based on Brainteasers
by VBprogrammer on Thursday January 05, 2012 @02:56PM
(#3430199)
I don't want to put words in the OPs mouth, but in my experience knowing that you should use a recursive solution probably puts you ahead of the curve. Being able to produce a solution which has the correct general form possibly after a little prompting would count as a reasonable pass.
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Re:Why 37signals Doesn't Hire Programmers Based on Brainteasers
by phillmv on Thursday January 05, 2012 @03:14PM
(#3430285)
I think it depends on what you're hiring for.
For 90% of engineering tasks, you're just plugging together different technologies other people put together. Oh hey yeah, Unix + HTTP + Rails + Javascript + Some Dude's API.
The amount of SHEER INTELLIGENCE necessary to untangle the above is, I think, not very high. It's a low threshold of competence. So, for that range of problems, fumbling around for fifteen minutes in front of a whiteboard will display the necessary grasp of logic.
The hard part in interviewing (and what people usually screw up), in my opinion, is almost entirely finding someone with a can do attitude who you can get along with for 40hrs every week.
Almost anyone can string stuff together; finding people that you can trust is way harder.