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Comment by i_hate_pigeons | Hacker News Reader

For technical interviews I've settled down and just ask the candidate questions about things _they_ are familiar with, so things they've done recently and then try to gather how much they really understand about that, if enough seniority then also how much they contributed towards decision making.

After all I'm trying to find, do they have initiative? do they care? do they make informed choices? do they think by themselves?

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I was recently appearing for an interview and a fintech org did this. Wow that interview was so pleasant. I did not have to worry about forgetting where algorithm X is O(N^2) or O(2^N).

and since they asked all about my experiences and what was written, I was able to articulate more than I would in usual tech rounds.

Although we couldn't agree on location for personal reasons, that is an org which I would recommend specially as they really wanted to know the candidate's behavior and not whether he could remember some implementations which they're mostly never going to use.

> Forgetting where algorithm X is O(N^2) or O(2^N)

I find it absolutely shocking that you would consider it trivial knowledge whether an algorithm is low-degree polynomial or exponential. The pendulum is swinging way too far to the other end. If you can't remember/figure out whether the code you're writing is O(N^2) or O(2^N) you should not be writing code professionally.

I haven't got a clue what your onabout yet I write code professionally

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