Hacker News Reader

Fizzbuzz could take an hour if you go after it from every angle. Be honest with yourself. Your "main question" would personally take you at least thirty minutes to properly explore had you never seen it before. Dispense with the warm-up. Finish the interview on-time for once in your life.

View on HN

We don't explore it from every angle. I try to speed them up by saying things like "first 3 months have 31/28/31 days, and use '...' for the remaining days so you don't have to write it out.

A few candidates have finished in under 5 minutes.

Great, I take everything back. Ask the warmup, and the warmup alone, as that seems to yield precisely the desired subset in five minutes time, and you can go back to your real work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com