For example, there is almost no engineering question on the planet that people straightforwardly solve from first principles in 30 minutes, unless it’s totally shallow based on memorization or childish rote practice — and has virtually zero relationship to how they would ever solve any problem at work.

But there are all kinds of insanely hard problems that people can give you beautiful solutions for in 10-20 hours, and involve an entirely different way of working than anything possibly representable in 30 minutes.

Engineering and math questions just require burn-in and rumination, tinkering, stop & get a cup of tea, take a walk, tinker more. They just do.

Seeing “how someone thinks” in an artificial 30-60 minute session only tests a completely separate and mostly unnecessary skill set for passing tests and memorizing things.