> and I explained to the interviewer who was two years out of college
Yeah, that one's easy. Young coder sees a competent, experienced dev and tries to sabotage your interview out of fear you'll show up and make a fool of him. It's possible he was just that arrogant, but it sounds suspicious.
Based on my experience, devs who are 2 years out of college, regardless of how well they understand algos and data structures, are mediocre software engineers. The only exception to that are those devs who have been coding since they were 10 or 12, and who grew up working on actual open source projects (one of my main open source collaborators was like this, and was an excellent dev by age 20). Just growing up coding isn't enough, since you won't have exposure to the actual engineering practices needed for professional developers. And just 4 years of college isn't nearly enough, since you again don't get much exposure to the actual engineering practices needed for professional developers.
Naw, I just shadowed a new young interviewer and he asked a similar question that was unreasonable. As a recent grad he legitimately didn't recognize that the interviewee wouldn't necessarily know this one specific thing. We discussed it and he's going to try again next time with a more reasonable question.
Yeah, that one's easy. Young coder sees a competent, experienced dev and tries to sabotage your interview out of fear you'll show up and make a fool of him. It's possible he was just that arrogant, but it sounds suspicious.
Based on my experience, devs who are 2 years out of college, regardless of how well they understand algos and data structures, are mediocre software engineers. The only exception to that are those devs who have been coding since they were 10 or 12, and who grew up working on actual open source projects (one of my main open source collaborators was like this, and was an excellent dev by age 20). Just growing up coding isn't enough, since you won't have exposure to the actual engineering practices needed for professional developers. And just 4 years of college isn't nearly enough, since you again don't get much exposure to the actual engineering practices needed for professional developers.