alt Hacker NewsI mean gp is clearly a joke but
A fundamental part of the job is being able to break down problems from large to small, reason about them, and talk about how you do it, usually with minimal context or without deep knowledge in all aspects of what we do. We're abstraction artists.
That question wouldn't be fundamentally different than any other architecture question. Start by drawing big, hone in on smaller parts, think about edge cases, use existing knowledge. Like bread and butter stuff.
I much more question your reaction to the joke than using it as a hypothetical interview question. I actually think it's good. And if it filters out people that have that kind of reaction then it's excellent. No one wants to work with the incurious.
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It has nothing to do with “incurious”. Being asked to draw the architecture for something that is abstracted away from your actual job is a dickhead move because it’s just a test for “do you have the same interests as me?”
It’s no different than asking for the architecture of the power supply or the architecture of the network switch that serves the building. Brilliant software engineers are going to have gaps on non-software things.
If it was framed as "show us how you would break down this problem and think about it" then sure. If it's the gotcha quiz (much more common in my experience) then no.
But if that's what they were going for it should be something on a completely different and more abstract topic like "develop a method for emptying your swimming pool without electricity in under four hours"