Riddles are useless interview tools. When I am building a new dev team or adding to an existing one, I care about two things:
1. Did the candidate make a critical contribution to a piece of technology that I respect. I will start by asking them for examples of this in a lot of ways including asking them to present something they're proud of to the team. I will not rest until I have verified they did this through my network and back references.
2. Is their chemistry compatible with the team, or as it is more popularly put today, are they a good culture fit? That opportunity to present to the team is an important test. Another one is that the interviewing team has to catch them out being wrong about something and then see how they react to that. You can learn a lot about how someone deals with learning they're wrong about something. Lastly, we look for opportunities to socialize with the candidate. They can't be a good culture fit if nobody wants to spend non-work time with them.
1. Did the candidate make a critical contribution to a piece of technology that I respect. I will start by asking them for examples of this in a lot of ways including asking them to present something they're proud of to the team. I will not rest until I have verified they did this through my network and back references.
2. Is their chemistry compatible with the team, or as it is more popularly put today, are they a good culture fit? That opportunity to present to the team is an important test. Another one is that the interviewing team has to catch them out being wrong about something and then see how they react to that. You can learn a lot about how someone deals with learning they're wrong about something. Lastly, we look for opportunities to socialize with the candidate. They can't be a good culture fit if nobody wants to spend non-work time with them.