Wouldn't simply taking an IQ test, or submitting your SAT score along with your resume serve the same purpose then? If the goal is to reveal "technical ability" this would save a lot of time.
I'm not being sarcastic at all, but I can see how my comment could be interpreted that way.
I don't have evidence (though I'm sure I could find it) but I think IQ and SAT scores are probably very highly correlated with coding abilities. Coding is just analytical problem solving after all.
So I honestly do think IQ and SAT score have almost as much predictive power of your ability as a software engineer as a simple coding exercise.
Honestly, I'd bet the only extra predictive power comes from the fact that correctly solving fizzbuzz reveals an underlying motivation and interest in software engineering.
"Coding abilities" aren't innate. Writing a for loop in Java isn't something you're born knowing how to do. Everybody learns it at some point.
Think about it this way. Take two people with the same IQ test result. One of them can solve fizzbuzz, and one of them can't. How much would you be willing to bet that the other one won't be able to solve fizzbuzz if you or I teach them about Java for two weeks?
I don't know. I went to an Ivy league college, and though I ended up pivoting and only getting a minor in CS, I was in and around the CS department for a long time. There were a lot of absolutely brilliant people there, in the CS department, that couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag, even after ostensibly studying computer science and programming for years.
I don't know what it is, but there appears to be something intrinsically different in people that really grok computers and those that can't. Flying spaghetti monster knows, there were people that could run intellectual circles around me, but their brains just locked up and started stuttering trying to understand pointers.
