Over the years and across 100's of technical interviews, I've found that I get the best results from asking smaller numbers of easier problem-solving-with-code questions that require the candidate to demonstrate basic skills. I'm the guy who makes sure that the candidate can clearly get over a low bar.
I do this because the candidate pool is swimming with people with great-looking degrees and long resumes and fine references who can talk all day long about computer programming but who simply cannot program a digital computer.
So I ask a 5-minute easy warm-up question and then a 40-minute harder problem. I pace things slowly and give them all the time that they need. I happily answer any questions they may have about the problems, which can all be stated clearly in short sentences. I do not care what programming language they use or whether their syntax would compile or how descriptive their variable names are.
Essentially, I'm trying to not generate a "false negative" result. If you can't do my easy stuff, I really don't want to work with you. If you're a great candidate, you'll have fun with this and take it away in interesting directions.
(Sample easy question: Given two closed intervals [a,b] and [c,d], determine whether they overlap.)
I do this because the candidate pool is swimming with people with great-looking degrees and long resumes and fine references who can talk all day long about computer programming but who simply cannot program a digital computer.
So I ask a 5-minute easy warm-up question and then a 40-minute harder problem. I pace things slowly and give them all the time that they need. I happily answer any questions they may have about the problems, which can all be stated clearly in short sentences. I do not care what programming language they use or whether their syntax would compile or how descriptive their variable names are.
Essentially, I'm trying to not generate a "false negative" result. If you can't do my easy stuff, I really don't want to work with you. If you're a great candidate, you'll have fun with this and take it away in interesting directions.
(Sample easy question: Given two closed intervals [a,b] and [c,d], determine whether they overlap.)