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Comment by ek | Hacker News Reader

> Spoiler alert: to solve this problem, you need to know how to enumerate the rationals.

This problem was addressed nicely in this functional pearl by Jeremy Gibbons, et al.: http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/jeremy.gibbons/publications/rationals... . As interesting as the result is, however, it's a pretty well-made point that research-level ideas from the programming languages community are not really software engineering interview material in the vast majority of cases.

This is yet another example of "rockstar developer"-itis, wherein startups are given to believe that they need the best of the best when in fact they do not. This particular example is entirely egregious because they asked her about something that requires enumerating the rationals when what they really wanted was an iOS code monkey. Then they fired her, based on their own shoddy interview.

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The worst part of it is that it's easy to feel like it's your own fault when something like this happens. The real problem was the hiring manager misleading the applicant about what the job would be, but the OP clearly felt responsible for it.

I had a similar experience (working for family, at that), where I joined their R&D group and it went well for a while, but eventually they decided they wanted to get into selling solar power and didn't need a software/electrical engineer, so I was lectured about this or that bullshit and eventually brought into a meeting with the IT director and offered a position on his team. I realize now that they were trying to make me feel unwelcome, but I felt entirely responsible at the time. I never felt like I had a choice in taking the IT position (or lose my employment there entirely), and I hated it. The new boss was, for the most part, a nice guy, but he turned into a major nitpicking asshole over little things.

I'm at a new place now and it's still hard to kick the habit of trying to avoid coworkers because you know they don't like you and want you gone.

Culture has a huge impact on hiring and working. I wish I had been taught about culture when I was in school, I could have avoided the problems I faced had I realized the warning signs earlier.

The need the best of the best but they are identifying the best the wrong way. Maybe they need the best CRUD developer, well if all you look at are candidates with strong research-level knowledge then they will not be the best at building CRUD apps. Sure we can all say that the research-level code is harder and naturally that makes that candidate smarter, but it's like trying to find the best doctor for a nursing position.

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