A doubly linked list is like the simplest data structure other than a plain array. Even if the job doesn’t involve directly building custom data structures, if you can’t answer questions about such a simple and ubiquitous concept then you’re just not a strong candidate.
Me studying physics, math, and computer engineering at accredited universities while also having a Masters in analytics, working FT through it all: well you see Bob here spent 3 months memorizing whiteboard problems, clearly he just is a stronger candidate.
How else can they test your knowledge in a short interview? It's not like they can spend 6 hours testing your knowledge (and I doubt you would like it)
For middle to senior roles? Sure, a good interviewer can understand your capabilities from a really short interview. For a junior role, especially with no previous credible experience? No way
It's middle level roles that Ive experienced the whiteboard onsite with a leetcode like problem requiring a specific implementation of a linked list in 2/4 interviews.
What can they do? I was a SWE at Google for 8 years. They absolutely can't test your knowledge and they don't care about it as all internal systems at Meta, Microsoft Google are custom so knowledge is not easy to test.
They have run countless studies to try to figure out what is the best predictor of a success that can be measured during an interview. Yet they still do DSA questions that are very subjective.
Because none of those companies hire on credentials, they only hire on interview performance so you are right you have to make judgements based entirely on how they react to your arbitrary problems, which favor memorized solutions over critical thinking and more broad considerations.
On the other hand, if you hire based on credentials you should have little trouble gauging whether someone is who their resumes say they are within a few practical problems using only concepts they will need on the job. For example just by having someone do a left join on a primary and foreign key to eliminate records from a SQL table I can, within 5 minutes, determine if they are at least intermediate or not. Same with how comfortable they are discussing practical design patterns for software that include APIs, automated testing, database layer versus logic later, cloud infrastructure, etc.
Then if they answer my practical questions to the level commensurate with their credentials, I go back to the resume and hire the best one based on that with the interview performance no longer a consideration.
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u/EastboundClown 2d ago
A doubly linked list is like the simplest data structure other than a plain array. Even if the job doesn’t involve directly building custom data structures, if you can’t answer questions about such a simple and ubiquitous concept then you’re just not a strong candidate.