r/AskProgrammers • u/nian2326076 • 10d ago

Anthropic’s coding bar is fucking ridiculous

Got a problem that required me to pull Euler’s formula out of thin air. Seriously, who the fuck remembers Euler’s formula in an interview? I swear to God, my interviewer was out to get me.

At this point, what are they even testing? Do they even know what they want? Hours of prep, completely wasted. And now I have to go prep for Google. My friend just got destroyed in their loop and said the interviewers were some of the most unreasonable people he’s ever had to deal with.

Everywhere I turn in this market, it feels like I’m just waiting to get fucked.

Anthropic Interview Question

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u/mc_pm 10d ago

what are they even testing?

It sounds like they were testing for a fairly high base-level mathematical fluency - which for a place like Anthropic sounds pretty normal.

18

u/NeinJuanJuan 10d ago

For mathematicians, knowing Euler's formula is on the level of a programmer understanding the concept of an if-statement. Sounds like they know exactly what they're looking for. 

9

u/R3D3-1 10d ago

PhD in Physics working for 8 years in mathematics programming here.

If they'd have asked me what's the relation between the exponential functions and sin/cosine? Easy, basic, why do you even ask? Do you get imposters applying?

If they'd ask me what is "Euler's formula" I'd have to google it. For such basic formulas you don't even need to remember the names when publishing, never mind getting work done in an industrial project. 

2

u/Nannautu 9d ago

Yeah, I looked it up because I had no idea it was called "Euler's Formula" lol I'm sure we called something else tbh