+1 to all this. It still surprises me how many people, even after being in the industry for years, think the goal of any interview is to “write the best code” or “get the right answer”.

What I want to know from an interview is if you can be presented an abstract problem and collaboratively work with others on it. After that, getting the “right” answer to my contrived interview question is barely even icing on the cake.

If you complain about having to have a discussion about how to solve the problem, I no longer care about actually solving the problem, because you’ve already failed the test.

I think you're severely underestimating how much just about every software company has bought into the FAANG philosophy, and how many candidates they get who can answer those questions correctly.

Yes if you don't communicate clearly, you will get points deducted. But if you can't answer the question nearly perfectly, its basically an immediate fail.

Unfortunately I used to think this was the main purpose of the interview as well, but have been proven wrong time and time again.

The only thing that matters in most places is getting to the optimal solution quickly. It doesn't matter if you explain your thought process or ask clarifying questions, just get to the solution and answer the time and space complexity correctly and you pass.

Like others have said I think this is a symptom of the sheer number of people applying and needing to go through the process, there is no time for nuance or evaluating people on if you would actually like to work with them or not.