The truth is that it is a tough problem. Everyone wants to figure out if you're smart and can figure problems out. I have, however, seen 10 year engineers have trouble reading a small data structure and writing 2 nested loops. So I think the biggest issue is just nervousness.
I mean yes, some engineers are going to be better at interviews than others but we gotta go by some signals. We had to flunk a few because it was "we see the depth of knowledge the person describes, but we have to go by the signals we saw, otherwise we're just randomly picking people".
Point is it is tough. However it does say something that our interviews are just a bunch of quizzes and studying for a month will make a huge difference. When hiring the goal is to find out if the person is good, not if they crammed, but cramming does work quite well.
I mean yes, some engineers are going to be better at interviews than others but we gotta go by some signals. We had to flunk a few because it was "we see the depth of knowledge the person describes, but we have to go by the signals we saw, otherwise we're just randomly picking people".
Point is it is tough. However it does say something that our interviews are just a bunch of quizzes and studying for a month will make a huge difference. When hiring the goal is to find out if the person is good, not if they crammed, but cramming does work quite well.