On a great interview question
I&#x27;ve hired close to 100 developers across three companies that I started, and it has never occurred to me to compel a candidate to regurgitate memorized algorithms in an awkward, stressful moment because that doesn&#x27;t test anything close to what they will actually do in a typical day.<p>Key point: I&#x27;ve never met anyone in the industry whose job it is to implement algorithms without reference materials all day long. It&#x27;s more like... you might find yourself needing 1-2 clever bits a year, and the rest of the time you&#x27;re tweaking model classes and hunting down UI bugs.<p>Algorithms are both easy to Google and these days, CoPilot will do the hard 4&#x2F;5ths for you if you actually need them. It&#x27;s also common that the really intense stuff is written by the PhD braintrust cofounder, not the people being hired after the fact.<p>What I want to know when I&#x27;m interviewing is simple: how do you approach solving problems; do you have an interesting personality that I&#x27;d like to interact with every day; are you the sort of person who has a strong instinct about what the next thing to do is, and will default to working on that thing without prompting?<p>Do you think learning new things is exciting? Are you able to admit you don&#x27;t know something and do you feel comfortable asking for help when you&#x27;re stuck?<p>Do you seem reliable? Are you a starter, a finisher or both?<p>Do you have a sense of humour? What do you do on the weekend?<p>Ultimately, I care what you know... but I am far more interested in your capacity to quickly master new things.