Say you have an interview problem that's a legit hard one and you have absolutely no clue how to get beyond a naive brute force answer. For example it requires a concept you're not familiar with like topological sort or whatever. If you're able to work out the solution with the interviewer's help is it ok? Assuming good teamwork/social skills etc. I guess this is more directed towards interviews like Facebook where I hear speed and optimal solution are most important. Incidentally I'm slotted for an E6 loop. TC: cofounder of startup, early stage so just equity
Totally depends on the interviewer
At Facebook for senior/lead role, they docked me for not coming up with the first optimization without a hint, even though after the first one, I came up with a better optimization
Did you get an offer?
Nope,I also underestimated the behavioral portion, don't make the same mistake! They take the non technical stuff seriously.
Actually I had this exact situation with topological sort. I interviewed with Google for a SWE role and was doing the phone interview. At this point I had no clue at all what topological sort was, never heard of it, and the interviewer didnt mention it. I came up with a solution that just so happened to be a modified topological sort and the interviewer helped me refine it. Anyway, she moved me on to the on site round and sounded genuinely pleased when she said "thank you for the interesting conversation, that was great". So my point being that you can "collaborate" you just have to keep trying to come up with a solution and take their hints. I think a lot of people mistake collaboration for the interviewer spoon feeding you a solution. I later ran into topological sort and found out that I already "knew" it/came up with it in an interview.
Interesting, great work. I think I would've come up with the idea of topological sort but I'm not sure how much guiding I would need to actually code it within 45 min