Funny Anecdote: Software design for an elevator system

12 points by rajs123 6 years ago | 2 comments

During my undergrad years, I had never travelled to US/UK/Europe. During my final years, while interviewing for FAANG, I was asked to design an elevator system. Of course, I did not know about the type of elevators where you need to enter floor number first and you are assigned elevator number separately. I went ahead and started designing for elevators I had seen with up and down buttons.

Later, I received feedback that I did not ask for clarification. I am sharing this today so that interviewers out there are also mindful of the culture and background of candidates before judging them.

I am in one of the FAANG companies now where I have the most amazing manager and frequently discuss drawbacks in the current interview system and this has helped us build an amazing team.

diehunde 6 years ago |

That's funny. I've also never seen one of those until I came to the US. Also, sometimes while I wait for the elevator I stop to think if the algorithms that power elevators are complex or not. I didn't know some companies ask that question during interviews. Now for sure I'll do some research on it.

mxab 6 years ago | |

I once interviewed at a major German elevator manufacturer in the department that works on those traffic algorithms and from what I can tell, it is quite a complex problem for larger office buildings where you have a lot of traffic that mostly flows into one direction at various times of the day, such as in the morning or at lunchtime.

But they also told me that one of their main problems is that the optimal strategy often doesn't feel optimal to the customer, so that's why they sometimes use less-than-optimal strategies.

Sounded like an interesting job.