alt Hacker NewsHey, one day the fate of the company is going to hinge on getting an accurate estimate of how many ping pong balls can fit into a 747, and they'll be glad that they asked the right brainteasers.
Hey, one day the fate of the company is going to hinge on getting an accurate estimate of how many ping pong balls can fit into a 747, and they'll be glad that they asked the right brainteasers.
I had one recently that was like.. I'd be better at this test if I knew less / was less experienced.
An hour to implement a toy version of a component which, the last time I did it "in real life" blew everyone away that I had a prototype ready in 1 day. That real life prototype went through weeks and weeks of iteration before it was even useful, and everyone was happy with that. But yeah that's something to time box to 1 hour in an interview environment.
So turns into an exercise of - which of the 100 pitfalls/nuances do they want me to pretend don't exist in order to complete it in 1 hour. Opinions vary!
There were multiple questions of this form.
One could pass this test blindly as a new grad not knowing the 100 pitfalls of actually building one in real life.