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> Maybe surprisingly, junior candidates sometimes rank better at this problem because their Data Structure & Algorithms knowledge is more fresh. But this pattern is not universal. Good senior candidates have no problem with the interview at all.

You’ve already lost me, dude. If the question can’t meaningfully differentiate between a junior and a high level senior, it’s a trash question.

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You'd be surprised.. but we're trying to distinguish between someone who can code simple algorithms versus one who can't.

No, you are not. You have a terribly unbalanced expectation that someone who was just presented with this question will achieve the same depth that you have. But you have been on this question for a long time now, know it deeply, and from the comments on this thread, you still got half of it wrong anyway.

You can differentiate between a junior and a high level senior by reading their CV, the point of the interviews is to probe everything else about them.

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