Seeing as you worked at Ning and likely participated in these types of interviews it's not surprising you don't get it. Surely Ning was a great place to work and I'm sure you found really top-notch employees through your well known tough hiring process, but I'd be willing to wager they all look very much the same when you blur your eyes a little bit.
My diatribe, as you so eloquently put it, is based on the article. The list of things that the author expects to see in the answer. The way the question is presented. The lead off with "interrogation". The "gotcha" follow-up regarding how things might fail. These questions are great at finding a very specific type of candidate, but the entire point of my comment is that this one candidate type is typically not indicative of the best engineer. Of course you'll disagree, I'm sure, seeing as you were part of this process.
Asking how it will fail is a gotcha? To my knowledge and experience thus far, all systems fail. The question is "given this one, that we now have a good shared understanding of, which you designed with the tools you are most familiar with, how is it going to fail?
Not one candidate I can think of has been either surprised by this question, or felt stuck, fwiw. Again, I may be completely self delusional, but I hope not!
Well, I'm eager to hear what you think the candidate type of the best engineer is, why that type of candidate would fail to come up with a reasonable train of thought given the cited question in an interview, and how you select for that candidate type.
If questions like the one posted find a type of candidate who can think well under mild pressure, who can quickly brainstorm sensible approaches to technical problems, and who can communicate their ideas and reasoning to their peers, then that sounds like a pretty good outcome to me.
Wow. You seem angry, or frustrated. Did I say something that offended you?
I only participated in Ning's interviews as an interviewee. I worked for Ning for six weeks before the layoffs.
The only thing I'd notice when I blur my eyes a little bit is that Ning employees were better engineers than most I'd previously worked with. The same applies at my current employer, also known for its rigorous interviews. The similarities ended there.
You complain here about the things the author expects to see in an answer. He's looking to see what they think of that scale of problem and how their thoughts comport with their resume. He's looking to see what questions they ask to get more detail. He's looking to see that the solution is in reasonable bounds for hardware--that the candidate understands the limitations of the silicon we have to work with. He's looking to see whether they would reinvent the wheel or use proven technologies. He's looking to see what languages and technologies a candidate would choose to use. He's looking to see how well the candidate understands those tools. He's looking to see how cognizant candidates are of the failure modes of the system they're designing.
Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see any issue with the list of things the author expects to see expects to see. Can you be more specific, perhaps?
Likewise I don't understand the problem with the way the question is presented. He describes the data you have and the load you need to support. Is there something wrong with that presentation?
The crossed-out "interrogation" is obviously a joke. I'm certainly not known for my intuitive perceptiveness and I still saw that (and no, I never met brianm while working at Ning, to my knowledge).
How is asking about failure modes a "gotcha"? Every good engineer needs to consider how his designs and systems can fail. What in that question do you expect trips up good engineers?
The only "specific type of candidate" this question seems oriented toward finding is "good engineers." He's not asking for particular technologies. He's not even looking for a particular solution. He's just asking people an open-ended question about how they would design a system. All the best engineers I know would be able to answer that question in 30 minutes.
I don't disagree because I was part of the process, I disagree because I can't understand your objections. I hate to sink to personal attacks like you have, but have you considered that your opinion on questions like this may have been formed by your abilities? It seems a more likely possibility than that questions like this are fundamentally flawed in some way that you've as yet been unable to describe. Both companies I've worked with that have had rigorous interview questions of this sort have hired the highest quality talent I've ever had the pleasure of working with.
My diatribe, as you so eloquently put it, is based on the article. The list of things that the author expects to see in the answer. The way the question is presented. The lead off with "interrogation". The "gotcha" follow-up regarding how things might fail. These questions are great at finding a very specific type of candidate, but the entire point of my comment is that this one candidate type is typically not indicative of the best engineer. Of course you'll disagree, I'm sure, seeing as you were part of this process.