Painful read, as it resonates with me. I think I’m pretty hot shit but was humbled by the interview processes a few years back.

But in a different vein, found myself laughing at this reply in the comments:

Peter Lindberg 9 months ago

This reminds me about the time I almost got fired. I was at work, playing an intense round of table tennis, when the CEO burst out of his office. “This is it everybody!” he yelled, running over to the Big Wheel. He gave the wheel a spin, and then hurriedly explained “I’ve got a linked list and I need to know if it contains a cycle!”

I watched the wheel slow to a stop and panic set in as I realized the pointer was on my name. All eyes were on me as the whole team rushed into the Coding Room. I opened our communal laptop and started up notepad, which was the only application it was capable of running. The CIO loved to brag how he had cut 1% of costs by eliminating laptop and IDE purchases.

Everyone watched intently as I started to implement a linked list in C, which I needed to do before starting on the actual problem. I was pretty sure I knew how to solve this problem, so I started banging out some code. Then I hit a mental block. Someone behind me said meekly “couldn’t we just google this?” The crowd had barely begun to gasp and murmur at this suggestion when the CEO shouted “No! That’s not how we do it!”

I began to sweat. “How much time do I have left?” I said. “Five minutes!” was the panicked reply from one of my teammates. Suddenly I remembered the final part of the solution and frantically began to type again. “What happens if he runs out of time?” someone whispered. “Nobody knows… But do you really want to find out?” someone else said. I knew I’d be fired at the very least.

“Done!” I said confidently, and the CEO peered over my shoulder at the screen. After a few seconds, his eyes narrowed. “Ssssyntax error” he hissed. My heart raced as I scanned the code for the error. I found it just in time! A missing semicolon. Everyone sighed in relief and resumed their ping-pong and foosball games. I chuckled to myself and thought “this is why they pay us the big bucks!”

We’re not actually sure what the company’s product is. Whatever it is though, it relies exclusively on things like sorting and searching algorithms, and somehow doesn’t need data storage, infrastructure, networking, apis, or any of that amateur stuff.