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Discussion on: Terrible interview question: Swap variables without a temporary

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l1x profile image
Istvan

Once a Stanford graduate asked me to implement a complete currency arbitrage solution over the phone in 30 minutes. It took us 2 days and one math PHD to come up with a reasonable solution. This happens when a company does not have a hiring strategy across the board and people can ask total random questions. The other side of this is companies like Amazon that have very reasonable questions (for most of the departments) and rate you based on a standard that applies to every candidate. Much more reliable interview process.

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mortoray profile image
edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

Many interviewers forget that they had to learn solutions to problems, and that others may have never seen anything like it before.

If it's a fintech company hiring, perhaps the question is reasonably, but otherwise, I doubt it. They'll just randomly get people who can answer it through luck of experience. I could probably answer it, having written a finance platform before.

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l1x profile image
Istvan

It was actually Twitter. :) I work now for a financial company and I can assure you that we do not ask this question. :) My favourite questions are depending on which language somebody is proficient, some are about what are the gotchas of the language, some more about what is your approach to certain problems. There are some yes no type of questions and some that can be answered differently based on how experienced somebody is.

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mortoray profile image
edA‑qa mort‑ora‑y

Approach to certain problems... I'm so tempted to do this in an interview:

"What do you do if you're on a team, and somebody is requesting you do something stupid?"

/let them answer/

"Okay, now, how do you swap a variable without a temporary?"

:)

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l1x profile image
Istvan

:D

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sandordargo profile image
Sandor Dargo

You should do this as an interviewee :D