The FizzBuzz that did not get me the job

Overall view of the interview & company

• Many see the interview as a “hazing” puzzle with arbitrary constraints, not a realistic work sample.
• Strong sentiment that this process tests puzzle‑solving and code‑golf skills, not day‑to‑day software engineering (maintainability, collaboration, delivery).
• Several argue the candidate dodged a bullet: the rules and communication style suggest insecure or immature engineering culture.
• Others say interviews are two‑way: if this is how they behave in interviews, working there would likely be worse.

On the candidate’s solution (types & base‑15 trick)

• A lot of admiration for the creativity: using TypeScript’s type system and base‑15 encoding is seen as technically impressive and intellectually fun.
• Some would have hired based on this alone; the write‑up is praised as clear and reflective.
• However, many experienced engineers say this is exactly the kind of “clever” solution they would reject in a PR: hard to debug, niche skills required, poor fit for a mixed‑ability team.
• Several note that the “no numbers / no math” and 30‑line rules force cleverness; you cannot simultaneously demand simplicity and ban the obvious tools.

What the interview was really testing

• One camp: the exercise was about evolving requirements, refactoring, and readable code under constraints; the candidate “failed” by ignoring direct hints not to use types.
• Another camp: if readability and realism were the goal, the constraints (no numerics, no mutation, line limits) contradict that and push candidates into esoterica.
• Some argue the key intended trick was digit‑sum divisibility / base changes; others point out that this then mostly measures whether you’ve seen the trick before.

Communication, culture, and seniority

• Multiple comments emphasize that for a “senior” role, taking hints like “I don’t think that’s a good idea” as an instruction is important, especially in English‑speaking culture.
• Others push back: relying on indirect, culturally loaded hints is unfair, especially to non‑native speakers and neurodivergent people; expectations should be explicit.
• Ghosting after such an involved process is widely condemned.

Meta: FizzBuzz and technical interviews

• Many see this as emblematic of broken tech hiring: contrived puzzles, little relation to actual work, and weak predictive value.
• Some still defend simple FizzBuzz or small practical coding tasks as a basic screen, but say they should resemble real problems and tools, not game‑show rules.