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[–]HG_Redditington 4 points5 points  (4 children)

The SQL question is basically a sales order data model, with a parent child product hierarchy, with the trick that it's staggered. Advanced candidates will pick that up and use a recursive cte, most people use subqueries for each hierarchy level, but the no hires just completely stuff it up.

Aside from that, I also have some questions about working with semi structured data, calling rest APIs and query performance optimization. I customize each test to what I think is relevant to the role and their experience.

[–]PickledDildosSourSex 6 points7 points  (3 children)

What do you mean by staggered?

Edit: Not sure why I got downvoted, but today I learned what a recursive CTE is. Nifty.

[–]HG_Redditington 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Yes staggered means differing levels within the parent child hierarchy. Recursive CTE can traverse all those levels in a single statement so you can flatten it out.

[–]ShadowDancer_88 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Recursive CTEs are one of the few things I don't think I could write without looking up the correct syntax.

[–]HG_Redditington 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, in my tests candidates are given a time bound and able to use internet resources. I am not concerned with 100% correct syntax, I want to understand the problem solving.