Comment by zunzun

At work you will normally have an internet connection, so what are effectively useless "elite code" algorithm puzzles are A) easily looked up, and B) not most of what the work is. Those are not realistic problems, business have better things to do than waste time on those sort of things. Here is a realistic problem that might be encountered at work: "We need output X under these circumstances, but instead got output Y. Track down the problem and estimate time to correct". Another might be, "We have a new business requirement, how long will it take to design and code it - think about it and let me know tomorrow." Businesses are not arcane IQ test puzzles like the sites you are looking at.