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Meanwhile, I experienced one of the most unique job interviews at an autonomous driving company just this last week.

It was 45 mins of math.

Questions ranging from simple algebra to probability theory to physics. And I was applying for an embedded systems position.

Boy was I glad that I was good at that kind of math.



What is that supposed to prove? Any type of engineer or mathematician could pass that interview and still not know anything about coding.


I imagine the idea is that coding is easy to teach on the job, but the fundamental logic and analytical skills aren’t.


Although correlated, high math skills aren't a great proxy to the desired analytical skills you'd want. It is easily gamed with rote memorization if this test was discovered by an applicant pre-interview, as they would just prep for it (in which case, it ceases to be a good metric).

Doing a 45min test on maths seems overkill to me.


No, coding is not easy to teach on the job, especially if you have no knowledge of algorithms/data structures.


Yes, but it’s still pretty common. When I was interviewing for my first job, they were much more impressed with a couple of math puzzles I solved than my actual programming ability.




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