The interview was based on Hackerrank questions, which my thoughts are: The simplistic idea of a good programmer being able to come up with a good algorithm in a few minutes without looking up any reference doesn't fit with the current enterprise software industry. Most of the enterprise application programmers have never had to write their own sorting algorithm after they have left the school. If they have to take these tests, they have to invest not just 1 or 2 hours to take the test, but there also is an amount of time needed to refresh their memory about what they learned many years ago. Besides, not all of them are singles, they have families, and their own commitments. Time is an extremely valuable commodity. The really unfortunate thing about it is that even when you can solve them, that doesn't give any hint as to whether you can code or not, it just gives people an idea as to whether or not you are familiar with a certain algorithm.