I work in a large tech company and I also hate leetcode-style interviews, but I need to abide by the rules.
My ideal interview questions are as follows:
* No trick question. Reaching a solution shouldn't involve obscure knowledge or an "aha!" moment.
* Only basic data structures and algorithms, the kind that you will realistically use in most day jobs.
* Start with a very basic problem, and ask follow up questions with increasing complexity.
* Extend the problem in different dimension to probe the candidate in different axis. For example, ask the candidate to design an API for the code, or to run it at massive scale.
It's hard to come up with problems that cover all these points, but you can get close. I find these kind of questions allow me to assess candidate without making the process unfair or overly stressful for them.
I give a problem where it is quite literally "implement this spec". It's indeed a tricky one with corner cases and design that needs to be thought about. Unfortunately some very good programmers expect there to be an algorithmic trick and make it more complicated than it needs to be, even if I tell them that's not the case.
My ideal interview questions are as follows:
* No trick question. Reaching a solution shouldn't involve obscure knowledge or an "aha!" moment. * Only basic data structures and algorithms, the kind that you will realistically use in most day jobs. * Start with a very basic problem, and ask follow up questions with increasing complexity. * Extend the problem in different dimension to probe the candidate in different axis. For example, ask the candidate to design an API for the code, or to run it at massive scale.
It's hard to come up with problems that cover all these points, but you can get close. I find these kind of questions allow me to assess candidate without making the process unfair or overly stressful for them.