Green Lumber Fallacy in Software Engineering
The test isn&#x27;t so much about the ability to invert a binary tree (for example), but the ability to problem solve complicated problems where the obvious solution is probably not the best one.<p>In interviewing, it is hard to produce real world problems that don&#x27;t require a huge amount of context and details of some obscure software stack, so we go with abstract problems which are kind of irrelevant to real work, but the problem solving approaches you need to take are very relevant. Thinking about the requirements, thinking at the right level of abstraction, defensive coding, to name just a few.<p>Communication and whatnot are all on top of that, and yes, absolutely do need to be evaluated.<p>I&#x27;ll also note that MAANG companies have extremely sophisticated software stacks (and multiple ones for each company!) that were built by people who were hired using that method.<p>If it is wrong, it&#x27;s working pretty darn well.<p>There are many things I would change if I could, but we do have an existence proof that, in the aggregate at least, the people this interviewing method selects for can build amazing software stacks.