[calabin]

The screen we are performing here is a basic "can you program" type of evaluation.

We've run into a number of people with seemingly-decent resumes (several positions as engineers at reputable albeit non-FAANG companies like insurers or e-commerce firms) who have struggled to complete basic tasks like the Pascal's Triangle question mentioned above.

The intent here is to toss them a couple of softballs that they should be able to knock out of the park, almost like if they were helping a younger sibling with CS 1XX or 2XX level work.

We're not against the use of Copilot, etc. once onboarded. We just want to make sure that these candidates possess basic skills that their resumes would suggest they mastered years ago.

[TheMongoose]

Your questions are pointless. I have no interest in CS puzzles at all, I don't memorize or practice them, and that's what you're testing for. I write code to build stuff.

Why not have a conversation with them about things they have built instead? Not form questions that say "tell us about a time you encountered a problem you had to solve" but an actual conversation. Like... an interview.

[calabin]

This screen is after the "walk us through your resume, explain what you've built" conversation, where we ask them about specific challenges, decisions they made, etc.

Everyone who has made it to this screen has already spoken to us about their previous work and at least seemed to have some skill in their general area of programming.

What we're testing for doesn't need to be memorized or practiced. Anyone who can program for money should be able to do things like FizzBuzz, repeat the pattern in Pascal's Triangle with a for loop, or come up with a basic strategy to eliminate non-primes.

Even if you blow the part of the interview where you need to identify prime/not-prime, as long as you show us that you have a process you're fine.

Maybe we just suck at or are too charitable when it comes to processing what candidates have claimed to have done - I'm unsure.

[jrgilman]

Would you hire someone who can't solve fizz buzz without a LLM? Are we being for real here? Fizz Buzz tests the absolute basics of understanding control flow.