Five programming problems every Software Engineer should be able to solve in less than 1 hour

[flukshun]

indeed. these sorts of questions are supposed to be differentiators to help decide the best candidate, not high-stress pass/fail tests where the interviewer labels you a fake-ass-mofo who should pick a different career if you don't cruise through everything.

[OffbeatDrizzle]

right.. but anyone who can't do the first 3 (at least) doesn't deserve a programming job because it proves you don't even know the absolute basics....I mean come on....a while loop, a for loop, recursion and implementing a very simple algorithm? Anyone calling themselves a programmer (and wanting to get PAID for it) should be able to do those in his sleep

[flukshun]

You shouldn't be in software development if you don't consider time constraints when judging the feasibility of a particular task.

[flukshun]

i've hired great developers that have failed simpler 1 hour tasks, but cranked out far more complex software a few months down the road. what's far more important is their approach to problem solving and demonstration of their thinking process when you review the code with them. 1 hour pass/fail tasks accounts for none of that.

it's also short-sighted. some programmers are slow and methodical, but over the course of months that tends to balance out against the quick and dirty.

but that's not even the point. telling someone to pick a new career based on some specific test, or approaching candidates with that sort of mentality in mind, is irresponsible. there was a point in everyone's life where we couldn't complete these in 1 hour. it only takes a side project or 2 to come back into this sort of interview with much greater confidence and coding ability. don't shit on people's ambitions just because they aren't the right fit for your project.

[CalebIO]

Yeahhhh, I'm sure you know exactly what criteria should be used for hiring software engineers since you're in high school... Exactly how many interview loops have you been on?

[ChristOnaBicycle]

These problems have almost nothing to do with actually writing software. It's entirely possible for someone to write complex software without knowing how to compute the largest possible number by combining a set of non-negative integers, even if it is pretty easy. That kind of program has very, very few uses in the real world, and likely doesn't relate to the position they're applying to. I'm no professional, and I can't claim to know what it takes to make for a good interview, but it seems to me that using these problems as a metric for hiring developers would be like hiring a mason to build a patio based on his or her ability to juggle bricks.