I may not have been very obvious, but the puzzle I use in these interviews is very simple. So simple that I was a bit embarrassed until I've learned about fizz buzz. At first it was meant to be a warm up puzzle, but I stopped saying that basically on the first week of my interviewer career. When we interviewed a java architect guy (a friend of my then co-founder) who worked in that capacity for a big telco and completely failed at it.
It felt pretty bad, because he knew there would be another, harder task and we knew that he had no chance, so what do you do. But again, the task is simple, you don't need an IDE, you don't need to use any API. Some people do the very obvious solution (though that never occurred to me until I saw someone going down that path) which does need maybe 1-2 calls to the stdlib. But I always tell them that syntax details don't matter, they can use any language, and if they want to use some lib or API then they can just say that and I'll believe the thing is there and the call does what they say it does. (Unless it's obviously not true then I'll say how I think it works.) But it's mostly theoretical, because as I've said you don't need any APIs (though some people sometimes ask about the exact semantics of some less common language features and then we just agree that it works the way they say it works). It may sound cryptic, but that's just because I don't want to give away the puzzle :). E.g. think about what happens when an addition (using the plus operator) causes an overflow in their language of choice. It's just an analogy and even the thing it's an analogy for (that came up during one of the interviews) is not needed, but given how some candidates solve it, it may come up. And then I'll ask what could happen then, how do they think it works. If I know how that works I'll tell them if not, I'll just believe it works the way they say. Doesn't matter.
It's not a theatre. The idea is to somehow simulate a situation similar to what you'd experience during work from the perspective of problem solving . E.g. you'd be surprised, but a lot of people just don't think about testing their solution. So if you are really testing habitually, then I'm pretty sure I'd see (hear) you walk through the code, and run your test cases in your head. Maybe you'd start with stating test inputs and expected test outputs. A few people I've seen actually did that. And of course, these all register and tell a lot about how you work and how you think.
>every interviewer that thinks they are so clever and hasn't changed their question for years and I recycle and adapt answers, and for you,
> the answer to your question is probably listed verbatim on Blind, Glassdoor or Leetcode forums about your company and role.
1. My company is not on Glassdoor or Leetcode. It doesn't apply to small companies
2. The task is simple, it's not worth memorizing it. Actually it's so simple that if someone needs to memorize this, then they will have a problem memorizing harder puzzles for sure.
3. It's pretty easy to identify if someone knows the quiz (though, of course they can pretend that they don't, but that's borderline sociopathic)
4. I also use a code review challenge which is harder to reproduce, though some guy could be unfair and post it there
5. If this becomes a real problem for me, I'll probably add pair programming to the mix
I understand the motivation for some people to want to circumvent interviews, thinking those don't do justice for them. It's hard to tell. I've never been afraid of interviews, though I've never really interviewed to any job where I though I had to get in. The problem with posting questions and trying to circumvent is that the response will probably be that interviewers just keep changing the questions which will result in less predictable outcomes. Or everyone will just require a long, take-home project (though you can game that one pretty easily too) or throw more automation at you. (e.g. a 1.5 hours long HackerRank quiz just to get through to a human.) Seems like and instance of the prisoners dilemma to me.