<story><title>I don’t know how to count that low</title><url>https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/koGbEwgbfst2wCbzG/i-don-t-know-how-to-count-that-low</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>missblit</author><text>&amp;gt; I didn’t know the limit because it had been many years since I’d had a problem that could be solved with a DB small enough to be held in its entirety in memory. And they were right to fail me for that: the fact that I was good at solving strictly more difficult problems didn’t matter because I didn’t know how to solve the easier ones they actually had.&lt;p&gt;No way it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;right&amp;quot; to fail an interviewee because they wondered outloud if a dataset can fit in memory. A candidate should be able to estimate the answer, but beyond that it&amp;#x27;s trivia that can be researched as needed -- indeed even asking the question is a positive signal not a negative one (it&amp;#x27;s not just people with &amp;quot;google scale&amp;quot; background who reach for over-complicated solutions).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Traster</author><text>Well, I think &amp;quot;can this be held in memory&amp;quot; can be a stupid question. What I thought was more of a problem is:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And they were right to fail me for that: the fact that I was good at solving strictly more difficult problems didn’t matter because I didn’t know how to solve the easier ones they actually had.&lt;p&gt;Scale problems are &lt;i&gt;a&lt;/i&gt; type of problem. They aren&amp;#x27;t strictly more difficult than problems on a smaller scale. Being able to scale to thousands users&amp;#x2F;cpus&amp;#x2F;shards is a skill. Thinking your niche skills are solving the &amp;quot;difficult&amp;quot; problems and other skills are easier is not a good attitude.</text></comment>
<story><title>I don’t know how to count that low</title><url>https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/koGbEwgbfst2wCbzG/i-don-t-know-how-to-count-that-low</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>missblit</author><text>&amp;gt; I didn’t know the limit because it had been many years since I’d had a problem that could be solved with a DB small enough to be held in its entirety in memory. And they were right to fail me for that: the fact that I was good at solving strictly more difficult problems didn’t matter because I didn’t know how to solve the easier ones they actually had.&lt;p&gt;No way it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;right&amp;quot; to fail an interviewee because they wondered outloud if a dataset can fit in memory. A candidate should be able to estimate the answer, but beyond that it&amp;#x27;s trivia that can be researched as needed -- indeed even asking the question is a positive signal not a negative one (it&amp;#x27;s not just people with &amp;quot;google scale&amp;quot; background who reach for over-complicated solutions).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zomglings</author><text>No one knows why they &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; failed her on the interview. Have run many interviews, and it is very rarely the case that you fail a candidate for one technical slip up.</text></comment>