2. While I said the goal was to hire the best candidate, this was as compared to someone who is just barely better than not filling the position. Hiring a top 5 candidate is also very good. The argument in GP was (paraphrasing) "I know people that aren't good programmers but they can manage to do little changes to existing code therefore you shouldn't give interview problems these dummies can't solve."
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem literally tells you exactly what to do in your situation. I'm sure someone, probably a professor or fun video on social media has told you about this a dozen times in your life, but if you didn't pay attention you can always Google it or ask ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/share/67d3a121-13e4-8006-9ae3-625838875e...
2. While I said the goal was to hire the best candidate, this was as compared to someone who is just barely better than not filling the position. Hiring a top 5 candidate is also very good. The argument in GP was (paraphrasing) "I know people that aren't good programmers but they can manage to do little changes to existing code therefore you shouldn't give interview problems these dummies can't solve."