Facebook | Engineering Puzzles

Many of these seem pretty easy.

I like that there are two submission-testing tests at the beginning, including the thinly-veiled fizzbuzz.

I do wish there were longer samples, though. (I'm much more interested in the puzzles than applying for an engineering position.)

To me this seems ridiculous. A real programmer would not answer stupid time-wasters like that, as should have a sense of pragmatism. Want to show how good programmer you are? Show me what you did just for fun of the problem. Show me a problem others have not recognized yet and tell me how you can solve it.

Programmer is not meant to be a problem-solving machine, unless a narrow one that loves a life in a cubicle, as a mad scientist. Those days are over.

Don't give me ridiculous puzzles that do no good to anyone - I use my time to do greater things. A challenge to me is not an algorithm, but turning something difficult in something easy. An idea, not algorithm is what should be taken in consideration. An engineer doesn't know everything about everything, but knows enough to recognize and quickly learn more on the topic. Solving a problem like this is just a time waster, and the one who created on the other side just thinks he is so cool because he is creating puzzles. Solve a real problem, not made up to show how good you are. But I guess those puzzles comply with Facebook values...none..

These puzzles seem to me just as if they want to hire people who are desperate to work for them. It seems it's the new trend in recruiting.

I dunno, these problems aren't very puzzle-y, they look like job interview questions. I'd rather do top-coder questions or wu riddles.

I tried sending them an email with a build.xml file, and a java src file. But they've sent me an email stating that the build failed, even though the build works on my machine.

The src file is called hoppity.java. The build file compiles the class in the current directory, and copies the file in the same current directory.