The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

> I've got a hard time imagining they were going for a solution other than you adjusting the base.

I agree that this is probably what they were going for, but it still seems a bit ridiculous that the conversion from numbers to the chosen representation is not subject to the same rules (i.e., you can call `.toString(15)`, and this definitely uses numbers under the hood!). If this is allowed, then you could also encode your numbers as the string "{n % 3}{n % 5}" and be done with it. Or if they wanted a unique encoding, "{n}{n % 3}{n % 5}" would work too!

>Plenty of people like to solve challenges in weird ways and might even see the suggestions that it is inappropriate as a challenge.

That's absolutely not the way to approach an interview. "Let me try to do things the exact way you clearly don't want, just to see if we can." Is the candidate going to try to do their next job this way? What are you going to do when their egotistical attempts to solve problems in clever ways despite your advice and even instructions bites YOU?

>"What set of tools would you choose to build ? And why would you choose them over alternatives?" or "We here at X make use of Y a lot, have you worked with Y or alternatives? What did you think about Y or alternatives?". Both are infinitely more telling about the candidate.

I hate coding interviews but I am sympathetic to people who want to do them because I've met people who are such good bullshitters that they could fool most people. If you're talking about someone with no working experience and who claims to be self-taught, you really have to make them write code.

>Someone's choice for a contrived joke problem will not reflect their choices for a real software project.

The interviewers tried to tell him to approach it like an industrial-grade solution, not a weird academic exercise. He was in the mood to do an academic exercise, and that's what he did. The interviewers seriously don't know what he will do in the workplace. That's why they're trying to make him write some code in such a way. Self-taught people are more of a risk in that they often overcomplicate (or oversimplify) things.

>I worked with people who liked to solve silly problems in silly ways, but when it came to real projects always preferred mature languages and libraries which focused on long term support, stability and maintainability.

Good for you? I'm not talking about silly problems. I'm talking about someone who wanted to rewrite our build system in a compiled language, and our Python unit test driver in a different compiled language. He wanted to use inappropriate "fun" languages at work. I'm not categorically against using interesting new languages and tools, but when there is ZERO benefit to doing so and nobody else knows said languages, it is not to be done.

>The problem with the interview is that instead of talking about the subjects, they themselves want to rely on subtle hints about the candidate. Which may not mean anything.

The whole point of the interview is to get hints about the candidate. There are times when interviewers read too much into what the candidate does or says, but this isn't one of them. The candidate wanted to show off his knowledge of type theory despite pretty obvious hints that the interviewers didn't want that. That means he has bad social skills or else he has an ego issue. The fact he blogged about it in such a way to brag about his solution suggests he does have an ego problem. There's also a healthy chance that the whole story is fiction, just to advertise himself as a self-taught "genius" who is turned down for being "too good" lol.

Did the interviewer caution about the candidate's direction because they cared about the candidate and wanted to help, or because the solution was unique, unfamiliar and made them feel uncomfortable?

If you tightly script your interview, but then present it as open-ended and flexible: that's on you.

My take if I was interviewing (and forced to use this approach): appreciate what a interesting interview this was, explicitly tell them "wow! that'd didn't go as we planned, but interesting approach!", maybe steer conversation to the pros/cons of unique/efficient solutions vs. less terse / bog-standard approaches, have some prepared code to debug and refactor (instead of expecting the candidate to produce it).

I do a lot of interviews and most of them are so boring and forgettable. The best ones are unique and the candidates shows passion about in any demonstrable way.

I think this might be a troll post, but here's my comment anyway.

The reason why you didn't get this job is because they filtered out themselves, it was not you that was bad, it was them thinking you where too smart for them. It took a lot of time for me to figure out this, that in a relation you want someone that are on the same level. I used to think that companies want to hire the smartest people... But no, they want to hire people that are like them.

Here's my tip: Start filter out jobs instead of having them filter you out! There are many jobs, especially if you are willing to relocate.

Only apply for places that are as much into types and functional programming that you are! Or at least on your "nerd" level generally.

Do the company have a technical blog that writes about this stuff? Do the company have a technical speaker that speak about this stuff? Is anyone at the company writing technical articles about this stuff?

If you see a good article, reach out to the author and ask if they have any openings or can recommend a good company to work for.

Also if you are applying for a senior position, and you get to an interview, you should be talking to them as if they where 5 year olds. Even if they say they have 30 years of experience, explain stuff like if you where talking to a kid. For me it's much easier to come up with a better algorithm then explaining to others why it's better. It feels like explaining it to my dog.

If you're building some sort of basic, crud app you shouldn't hire this candidate, or at least recognize they are a project - is that what you want?

But if you're doing anything unique, or experimental they might be a great fit.

Most of us are doing the second.