> The goal is to sufficiently intimidate junior developers so they will know to steer clear of your organization.
We use fizzbuzz on senior devs claiming to be C++ experts and they stumble on it regularly.
I'm regularly intimidated by positions looking for capital s Senior C++ developers, because no matter how deep my knowledge goes, memory model, templates substitution rules and all, I realize there's dragons lurking behind every corner. Now, C is a language that fits in my head, C++ … not so much, but maybe that's because it is not part of my daily routine.
I'd suggest you look for _productive C++ developers_ that know their limitations. I think you might even get better candidates that way.
It sounds like they are. The "expert" is a self described one.
They were just way too good at playing the game and it took us way too long to get rid of the person - fired, not just dumped.
This outcome can be evidence of either condition:
1. There are a lot of expert developers who are actually not experts
2. The test is giving false negatives
Which do you think it is?