Wu Riddles: Hardcore tech-interview style riddles and mathematical puzzles (opens in new tab)

I always urge caution when internets fill with the trendy ire at "puzzle" questions in interviews. Yes, some questions are stupid. Yes, some interviews value the wrong things. Yes actual "brain teasers" and "gotcha" questions as an intelligence test are asinine. Yes, yes, and yes.

But... there are questions that sound very similar to such questions that are perfectly legitimate analogies to various computer science topics. Yes, you might say, "so ask me in computer science terms, not knights and dragons". And my response would be "Why? Do you have trouble with abstractions?". When I mention knights and dragons I'm making it very clear that the answer doesn't require some nuance of the C standard library or some knowledge of the JVM. I'm emphasizing the -abstract- part of the problem, for a reason.

Not to push my own blog but I wrote about this exact topic at length: http://lbrandy.com/blog/2008/09/here-be-the-code-monkeys/

I hate them, too, but the puzzles can be fun to do if you're not being faced down by a sweaty middle manager.

It's illegal in the United States to discriminate on a basis that has nothing to do with the job. So if your job doesn't require people with sharp analytical skills (trucking, for example), it would be illegal to use an IQ test. In programming, I doubt it would be illegal.

The reason for this is that people who wanted to exclude black people or women from their workforce would pick some irrelevant trait that the disadvantaged group would score lower on, and use that as the reason not to hire.

These puzzles aren't necessarily used in interviews, and I'm sure that employers who are looking for intelligent employees have several ways of attaining them.