[Eddygandr]

Didn't the guy who made Homebrew fail his interview at Google because he couldn't invert a binary tree? That's a guy who has built a popular product in the wild and can clearly code but failed because of the leetcode barrier at all IC levels.

[devoutsalsa]

If you can’t invert a binary tree, how can I trust you to change my website’s favicon?!

[seanmcdirmid]

You would be surprised how hard it would be to invert a binary tree, or really just what the question is asking for, if you didn't at least study up on the concept in the last decade. It is conventional enough to sound mundane, but how often are we inverting binary trees in practice?

[TrevorAustin]

To be fair, Homebrew is great product design, but actually pretty janky software engineering. Anyone who's had it wreck their PATH a couple of times isn't going to be an automatic yes vote on a technical screen.

[hotnfresh]

As if average FAANG quality in customer-facing software is better.

If that’s the hang-up on hiring him, they need to get the log out of their own eyes first, because shifting to the quality level of Homebrew would be a big improvement for a whole lot of their software.

[thereisnojesus]

Yes, we are aware companies hire privileged losers instead of skilled employees

[dehrmann]

Long ago, I switched to MacPorts because its path and directory story is better, and I didn't find myself having to run chown to fix things.

[ahoka]

But inverting a binary tree is trivial. It’s not like finding the shortest path in a graph, or something similar that requires recalling an algorithm on the spot. Go and look at the actual problem if you don’t believe me.

[nonameiguess]

It's amusing the answers so far are mostly all "well this is an easy question and he should have gotten it." I actually agree with that, but even so, he got rejected by Google but did get a job at Apple, which is what this article is about, and that seems like a far more relevant fact to me.

[sdfghswe]

You sound like you're trying to make a point. Make a point.

[121789]

I agree. Every hiring process will have false negatives. Pointing out every one doesn’t invalidate the effectiveness of the process