Hiring Is Broken: What Do Developers Say About Technical Interviews?
<i>Let’s begin with a technical interview problem. Consider the following coding question from LeetCode, an online platform for preparing software development candidates for interviews:</i><p><i>[statement of the Maximum Subarray Problem]</i><p><i>Before going further—and regardless of your coding
proﬁciency—we’d like you to spend a few minutes and take
a stab at this question.</i><p>From Wikipedia:<p><i>The maximum subarray problem was proposed by Ulf Grenander in 1977 as a simplified model for maximum likelihood estimation of patterns in digitized images. ... Grenander derived an algorithm that solves the one-dimensional problem in O(n2) time, improving the brute force running time of O(n3).</i><p><i>Jay Kadane of Carnegie Mellon University soon after designed an O(n)-time algorithm for the one-dimensional problem,[1] which is clearly as fast as possible. The same O(n)-time algorithm was later automatically derived by algebraic manipulation of the brute-force algorithm using the Bird–Meertens formalism.[2]</i><p>If you really think anyone -- short of a faculty-level algorithm specialist at places like CMU -- can be reasonably expected to derive an optimal solution to problems like these <i>on the spot</i> (as opposed to the way candidates are actually forced to prove their ability to &quot;solve&quot; them: by binge-cramming on dozens and dozens of problems like these for weeks on end, so that they have at least a 50 percent change of passing your &quot;filter&quot;) --<p>the you&#x27;re either very naive, or deliberately kidding yourself.