> pleasant person, are a team player, whether they have leadership aspirations, and take responsibility.
I know the above is a popular opinion, but I've worked as a SWE at a company A that had a "technical interview" process and Company B that didn't have a formalized one.
I would much, much prefer to work at company A (pay differences aside) because of the type of person who passes these interviews. It can be quite difficult to determine someone's capability at interview-time. But company B had lots of competency "false positives" (in my view) whereas company A had very few. That's the value of a technical interview.
That said, of course the XOR solution would never be the only one accepted, but it would probably get you brownie points here.
> company B had lots of competency "false positives"
The thing to note is that, in exchange for this, Company A (probably) had a lot false negatives. So it comes down to whether you'd rather missing out on someone that would have been beneficial for the company (false negative) or have to deal with accidentally hiring someone that is not a good choice (false positive). The best choice to make depends a lot on the situation.
I know the above is a popular opinion, but I've worked as a SWE at a company A that had a "technical interview" process and Company B that didn't have a formalized one.
I would much, much prefer to work at company A (pay differences aside) because of the type of person who passes these interviews. It can be quite difficult to determine someone's capability at interview-time. But company B had lots of competency "false positives" (in my view) whereas company A had very few. That's the value of a technical interview.
That said, of course the XOR solution would never be the only one accepted, but it would probably get you brownie points here.