[itsjustjoe]

I ask: 'Tell me about a problem that was particularly challenging'

I'd love for someone to tell me a story about something they couldn't solve (or at least not the way they wanted to).

If they can't come up with something, which is rare, I ask them to tell me about something that was fun for them.

[alok-g]

>> I'd love for someone to tell me a story about something they couldn't solve

I was in twelfth grade. I was given some EEPROMs which I had to write data to, just that I did not had the standard equipment to write to it. I used a printer port to drive an amplifier circuit I built, which in turn sent the voltages to the EEPROM. I sent waveforms exactly the way the data-sheet suggested. Yet, I wasn't able to read back what I was writing.

I had no oscilloscope or waveform analyzer to debug. All I could do was to re-read the data-sheet and then my program for correctness.

I could never figure why wasn't it working.

Later, my Dad found someone who did have the company-supplied EEPROM writing equipment and took the EEPROM to them. He learned that there was just data on the first few locations on it.

This is one of the very few projects where I have failed. Being in twelfth grade then, doing stuff that would fail college grads, I have not taken an offense with myself. :-)

[user5994461]

Then the guy start describing the problem he solved in his last 6 months.

And you realize you've done about the same, fully finished and shipped, in about 3 weeks.

The rest of the interview is wondering whether you should cry or he should.