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Comment by rajathagasthya | Hacker News Reader

These are useful tips, although the example questions are extremely outdated. I found one tip "interesting" though.

> If you already know the answer, don't just blurt it out! They will suspect that you already knew the answer and didn't tell them you've seen the question before. At least pretend to be thinking though the problem before you give the answer!

Most interview questions are taken from sites like Leetcode. So you would have come across some of them if you work through those problems. Is it really that bad if you give the solution quickly? Some problems have specific "techniques" to solve them which you would likely only know if you solved it before. Are you expected to come up with a completely new algorithm to solve a problem?

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>"> If you already know the answer, don't just blurt it out! They will suspect that you already knew the answer and didn't tell them you've seen the question before. At least pretend to be thinking though the problem before you give the answer!"

This to me epitomizes the absurdity of this whole "leet code, cracking the algorithm" mania that has blighted the tech interview process. The only way to pass these types of tests is to spend time studying them. But then if you have studied and therefore know the tricks(use two pointers etc.) its seen as unacceptable enough that you should either lie or tell your interviewer "I know the trick" to solving this so ask me something else." The whole thing has become a scripted charade.

I get it that these types of tests and interviews work for Google but it's absurd when small startups still building a product adopt these tests simply because Google and FB do it.

There's a sad corporate uniformity to it that feels very much at odds with the hacker ethos.

Ah yes, deceit and trickery, the basis of any solid future working relationship.

It is absurd that instead of correcting own bias against people who happened to randomly run across exactly the same problem, they advice you to pretend ignorance.

A better response would be honesty: "I've seen this question before on a (puzzle/interview prep/whatever) site. The optimal answer was better than what I initially came up with... I didn't consider that we knew one of the coins was explicitly heavier than the others, I was only thinking that one was a different weight. That's a good reminder to read your specs very closely."

Or something like that.

I dealt with this recently. Was asked to implement a LRU cache. I knew the trick, use two data structures to keep things sorted and accessible in constant time. Could do it in my sleep. Had to pretend I had never seen it before, started with a non optimize d solution and added the correct pieces to make it optimal. Interviewer seemed miffed, kept adding tests to see if my algorithm would get the wrong answer and seemed upset that I got it right. It was bizarre. Didn't get the job, didn't remember the answers to a few of the other questions, though I found them post interview.

>"...Interviewer seemed miffed,"

Probably because you deprived them of the opportunity to feel superior because they knew the answer and you didn't. You probably dodged a bullet - would you want to work with someone that got "miffed" during an interview because you knew the answer to something?

>Most interview questions are taken from sites like Leetcode

For phone screens: sure. Frankly, a lot of people will bomb a fizzbuzz-level question at the phone screen so why bother spending time thinking of a good question that they might leak onto the internet, forcing you to take the time to make up another?

Interviewers tend to take the on-site a bit more seriously and will at least add an unusual wrinkle to a leetcode question to stump anyone who just has a great memory but very little actual ability.

Short answer, yes. They don't expect a perfect answer but do expect something better than brute force (with presumably higher expectations depending on the level role). The better the answer is optimized the more impressive. Another part of it is the interviewers want to see at least some thought process. So if you stall giving the answer away you show alleged thought process and an excellent solution allegedly come up with on the spot.

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