
Ask HN: What year did algorithm-focussed interviewing begin? - 7402
I&#x27;ve been in the software business for 40+ years. There was definitely a time before the current emphasis on CS algorithms in interviews for software-engineering positions. We used to do things differently. But when did the transition take place? Possibly sometime in the range 2000-2005?<p>I&#x27;ve speculated that the transition is due to Google having been founded by a couple of grad students. When I was a graduate student in Physics, a dreaded rite of passage was the so-called &quot;Comprehensive Oral Exam,&quot; at which you were expected to be able to know and derive on the spot anything taught in the entire undergraduate-level canon. Perhaps the founding grad students did not have any other model for an effective interview process, and simply adopted the only thing they were familiar with. Google became successful, everyone else copied them, and here we are...
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pinewurst
I think you've answered your own question. :)

My memory is that it was rare pre 1998 in Silicon Valley but ubiquitous post
2005 or so - Silicon Valley and Seattle. It's unclear whether Seattle's
development was independent of the Valley's, stemming from Microsoft's well
known emphasis on algorithms and the same stupid logic puzzles that Google
became infamous for.

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mailslot
Pre-2000, I remember most questions revolved around data structures. Linked
lists, hash tables and various trees & such. For my line of work, it's
critical to know.

The "you're one inch tall and stuck in a blender..." Yeah. Google / Amazon
were my first experiences with those kinds of questions.

