I once had a job interview for a backend position. Their stack was Node.js, MySQL, nothing exotic. The interviewer asked: "If you have an array containing a million entries, how would you sort the data by name?"
My immediate thought was: If you have a JavaScript array with a million entries, you're certainly doing something wrong.
The interviewer continued: "There are multiple fields that you should be able to sort by."
This felt like a trick question. Surely the right answer was to explain why you shouldn't be sorting millions of records in JavaScript. Pagination, database indexing, server-side filtering. So I said exactly that.
I was wrong. He wanted me to show him Array.prototype.sort() .
My crime? Prioritizing real-world efficiency over theatrical scale. The interviewer didn't see a practical engineer, he saw a candidate who "lacked vision."
The Theater of Technical Interviews
I once read that "a complex system usually reflects an absence of good design." It's brilliant. True. And if you're prepping for a system design interview, forget it immediately.
In real-world engineering, simplicity is king. In interviews, complexity is currency.
Job interviews aren't assessments. They're auditions for a job title: The Architect Who Solves Hard Problems™.
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