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So, how did you get to where you are today? I’ve always been passionate about coding, starting from my early days at Olympiad teams in high school and ACM team

So, how did you get to where you are today? I’ve always been passionate about coding, starting from my early days at Olympiad teams in high school and ACM teams in college. Anyone who's made it onto an Olympiad team[1] of any significant geographical scale, in any category, shouldn't have to deal with this whiteboard nonsense. Maybe a few lightweight-to-medium rounds to verify that they are what they say they are. But that's about it. [1] We don't know if that's the case with Alibek; the article didn't drill down into that aspect of his background. I'm just talking to the fact that generally, there are plenty of easy ways -- albeit somewhat subjective, and in any case not uniformly applicable to all candidates -- to be at least 87% sure that the candidate isn't a a self-deluded poser, or outright liar about their coding skills (which seems to be the default stance many interview teams take). And the due diligence one should do to remove that 13% of uncertainty can be made far less time-consuming and grueling than it generally is. Really, if you know how to read the signals, you can much more -- and much more easily, for all concerned -- about someone's coding skills by giving them a single medium-hard, but short-and-sweet exercise... than rounds and rounds (and more rounds) of progressively harder ones, as seems to be the current craze. EDIT: Overall this is a very heartwarming piece; if a company like Booking -- known for having had several exceptionally talented programers on its staff over the years -- can not only take on someone like Alibek, but apparently consider him to be something of a find -- then that's a pretty damning indictment of the filtering processes used by the 38 of 39 companies that rejected him.

logfromblammo 11y ago
If only that were true. I'm a U.S. national event champion in Div. C Science Olympiad (Road Scholar), and I not only have to deal with whiteboard nonsense all the time, but also, the spouse never really believes that I know how to get anywhere from anywhere else. (Sure, argue with Siri/Google, rather than allowing that I might possibly know which direction north is.) Credentials are only as good as the trust other people put in them. And I'd guess that a good portion of interviewers are completely unaware that non-athletic Olympiad competitions exist. And anecdotally, it seems like tech interviewers wouldn't believe you could code your way out of a paper bag even if you walked into the interview over rose petals thrown on the floor by Kernighan and the ghost of Ritchie. I've had plenty of them remark "you are the only candidate that has answered that question correctly" and then never speak to me again. It really makes me wonder what the point of the technical portion of the interview really is. I have had only one interview where the interviewer actually cut short a technical screen because "clearly, you know your stuff". But no offer there, either.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I did not do Olympiads, but I did score highly in math modeling competitions and won a competitive PhD fellowship. I have had the exact same experience. I will get comments like, "That's the best submission we've seen for that take-home test" followed by literally no response of any kind after that. I've had places say, "you are absolutely perfect for our needs on Team X and you will help us meet our deadlines by the end of the year" and then make a job offer with a salary less than 80% of my current salary, worse equity, and worse benefits. Companies sometimes want on-paper credential, but they almost never care about actual productivity or talent.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  They're not looking for good people, they're looking for cheap people. 1 good person will cost as much or more than 5 bad ones and somehow it got into managements head that 5 'B' (or even 'C') players is better than one 'A' player for the same money. Which of course isn't true but good luck convincing people otherwise. (Source: regular clean up jobs after all the money has been spent and the company is on the skids and I get called in at a very large multiple of what an 'A' player would have cost to clean up the mess. I don't mind, it keeps me employed and brings home the bacon but it certainly does not seem to be the most efficient way to run an IT department...)
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    I think you got your second sentence a little twisted around. I've never seen an "A" player command a 5x multiple on a median or "B" player. I think "A" players are the best bargain in the software world...
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      > I think "A" players are the best bargain in the world... They are, but try explaining to your average PHB who doesn't even begin to understand the complexities of the 'simple' piece of software they intend to write that Charles here can do the job in 3 months and will cost 50K and that the five guys over there in the corner will take the job for 30K and will take a month longer (or so they think). Then, after 30K becomes 90K and the company is slowly sliding downhill that original 3 months and 50K estimate starts to look pretty good, but then the sunk cost fallacy kicks in and for an additional 10K (over the 90K) this time they'll get it right. And then finally the time will be up, the money will be gone and they'll have to shop for someone who will take on the task to fix it on a contingency basis in the next month or so. This plays out over and over again for some strange reason. So yes, A players are a bargain, but only after the money to pay for them has been pissed out the window.
timbofoo 11y ago
I see the whiteboard coding test as an attitude-test. If you have too much attitude to sit down and write some code for an hour, then you aren't someone I want in my company. It shouldn't be hard if you're skilled. Sorry to be that way, but that's the way I (and we) see it.
- trhway 11y ago
  you've just failed my attitude test because you started talking about attitude :) The reason for that is that chalking something up to attitude as a first or major explanation usually is just mental cheating on your part - in the particular case of whiteboarding issues there may be a lot of reasons for different people other than attitude, i'd venture to guess that attitude is never a reason (until of course it is a director/VP candidate and one of my friends suggests the candidate to write a sort, any sort ... even here i think the first was [lack of] such ability and the attitude was only masking it :)
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- slapresta 11y ago
  So, if they aren't willing to go through whatever random whiteboard bullshit you decide is due, then they can't join your company? Sounds like you're doing them a favor, not the other way around...
- wkimeria 11y ago
  Do employees at your company write all their code on whiteboards, without access to documentation, the internet and etc. And then when they have perfected the code they transfer it to a computer? If not, then you are not really interviewing for the right skills are you?
- draw_down 11y ago
  That cuts both ways, hombre. If you're not willing to think about the serious problems with conducting interviews that way, I don't wanna work with you either. Plus you literally just came out and admitted that it's not actually about measuring technical skill, it's some run-you-through-the-gauntlet "attitude" bullshit. Gimme a break.
philovivero 11y ago
> Anyone who's made it onto an Olympiad team[1] of any significant geographical scale, in any category, shouldn't have to deal with this whiteboard nonsense. Oh yeah? I've interviewed my fair share of self-righteous prima-donna "I shouldn't have to deal with you plebes" sorts before to know you'd better put them through MORE of this whiteboard nonsense rather than less. And if they get all huffy, you know that when they make a pile of shit, they'll be the quickest out the door to run away from it leaving those of us with work ethic behind to clean it up. Credentials mean precisely jack and shit to me. I want someone bright and humble.
- bpchaps 11y ago
  You sound unnecessarily angry and your interview style seems far more formal than it needs to be. Think their issue might be with you? ;)
  - philovivero 11y ago
    You'd be wrong. A vast majority of people find me very personable. I'm only talking about this microcosm of human interaction.
    - kafkaesq 11y ago
      That's the thing -- lots of personable, well-adjusted people do all kind of weird things when plunked into that bizarre "microcosm" of human interaction known as the hiring process.
      - bpchaps 11y ago
        Yep, and to add - interviews are almost never as reciprocal as they should be. I've been to 20 interviews or so in the past two months and the common pattern with the worst companies is a near complete lack of reciprocal respect and almost hazing (like GP does). The best listen to what's said and evaluate the content and the character at the same time without the need to do "extra whiteboarding" to prove some...thI'm not sure what it actually proves. What does it prove? I'm really at a loss there. Another thing about those nonreciprocal interviews is that they they tend to be led by significantly less talented folk in comparison. My friend Peter might know why.... ;)
jlees 11y ago
Just because you are smart enough to compete in an Olympiad doesn't mean you can function practically on a software engineering team. Whiteboard coding helps the interviewer see how you think and function as well as "can you solve this problem"; though I agree that it's not necessarily the best way to evaluate those capabilities, it's the best tool some companies have.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  I don't really see that. I think whiteboard coding is one of many ways a team could function and that how a candidate performs on it is not generalizable. For instance, I have never written code, pseudo or otherwise, on a whiteboard outside of an interview in over eight years of writing code full-time. Hell, I used a whiteboard more in my four years as an EE and two years as a SysE than I have as a SysE/SwE.
  - jlees 11y ago
    It depends how you evaluate the exercise -- for example, don't mark the candidate on correct code and syntax, but reasoning ability, communication, and problem solving. Whiteboard code interviews also have the flaw that the type of problem they tend to cover is not one you might run into in daily coding, so the way the candidate thinks and communicates is seen through a very particular lens - but my point is that given an Olympiad-level candidate who can clearly solve those kinds of problems, I think there is still value to be had from watching them solve them. I prefer whiteboarding systems design/architectural concepts, which is definitely something I do in the course of my regular work.
- kafkaesq 11y ago
  Whiteboard performance (positive/negative) doesn't correlate all that well with practical performance on engineering teams, either.
  - jlees 11y ago
    Oh, I can believe that. But the way said performance is measured -- both types -- is extremely varied. I'd summarize my viewpoint as "whiteboard interviews tell you something about how the candidate thinks and communicates, which you can use to jump into deeper explorations". Just because you know someone is smart enough to solve a problem doesn't mean it's not valuable to see how they do it.
rcheu 11y ago
If you were on your country's IOI team, you shouldn't be complaining about whiteboard problems. I think the major flaw of interviews is that if you did competitive programming ever, they're super easy. If you did Olympiad training and are still bad at whiteboard/algorithms, I think that's actually a reasonable signal.
- akamaka 11y ago
  Spot on! Every good competition coder I've met loves the whiteboard part of the interview and would happily crack away at problems for hours.
  - kafkaesq 11y ago
    If you think the only good coders are competitions coders... then put that in your posted job requirements: "Must l-o-v-e solving hyperidealized problems with clearcut answers, under gratuitous time pressure, while being watched with others (who already know the answer). For hours on end. Because that's what we do all day here. Serial olympiadists, hackerrank aficciandos, and other competition coders only need apply." It's really quite simple to do, and will (by drastically narrowing your candidate pool) make your filtering process much easier, I'm sure.
    - akamaka 11y ago
      I was responding to what the OP said about how he has lots of olympiad experience but didn't like demonstrating coding in interviews, which sounds bogus to me. I'll be honest, I did rate coding interviews as very important, but I changed my mind after working with some really great people who do really badly at them.
      - kafkaesq 11y ago
        From my reading of the blogpost, I don't see any reason to infer that he "didn't like demonstrating coding in interviews", per se. He did suggest that some of the problems one gets asked to solve are gratuitously hard, which correlates with my own experience. He also fairly acknowledged that he was getting a lot of rejection for other, e.g. cultural reasons. So it would seem that it's getting rejected, not "demonstrating coding in interviews" that he doesn't like.

logfromblammo 11y ago

If only that were true. I'm a U.S. national event champion in Div. C Science Olympiad (Road Scholar), and I not only have to deal with whiteboard nonsense all the time, but also, the spouse never really believes that I know how to get anywhere from anywhere else. (Sure, argue with Siri/Google, rather than allowing that I might possibly know which direction north is.) Credentials are only as good as the trust other people put in them. And I'd guess that a good portion of interviewers are completely unaware that non-athletic Olympiad competitions exist. And anecdotally, it seems like tech interviewers wouldn't believe you could code your way out of a paper bag even if you walked into the interview over rose petals thrown on the floor by Kernighan and the ghost of Ritchie. I've had plenty of them remark "you are the only candidate that has answered that question correctly" and then never speak to me again. It really makes me wonder what the point of the technical portion of the interview really is. I have had only one interview where the interviewer actually cut short a technical screen because "clearly, you know your stuff". But no offer there, either.

p4wnc6 11y ago
I did not do Olympiads, but I did score highly in math modeling competitions and won a competitive PhD fellowship. I have had the exact same experience. I will get comments like, "That's the best submission we've seen for that take-home test" followed by literally no response of any kind after that. I've had places say, "you are absolutely perfect for our needs on Team X and you will help us meet our deadlines by the end of the year" and then make a job offer with a salary less than 80% of my current salary, worse equity, and worse benefits. Companies sometimes want on-paper credential, but they almost never care about actual productivity or talent.
jacquesm 11y ago
They're not looking for good people, they're looking for cheap people. 1 good person will cost as much or more than 5 bad ones and somehow it got into managements head that 5 'B' (or even 'C') players is better than one 'A' player for the same money. Which of course isn't true but good luck convincing people otherwise. (Source: regular clean up jobs after all the money has been spent and the company is on the skids and I get called in at a very large multiple of what an 'A' player would have cost to clean up the mess. I don't mind, it keeps me employed and brings home the bacon but it certainly does not seem to be the most efficient way to run an IT department...)
- sokoloff 11y ago
  I think you got your second sentence a little twisted around. I've never seen an "A" player command a 5x multiple on a median or "B" player. I think "A" players are the best bargain in the software world...
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > I think "A" players are the best bargain in the world... They are, but try explaining to your average PHB who doesn't even begin to understand the complexities of the 'simple' piece of software they intend to write that Charles here can do the job in 3 months and will cost 50K and that the five guys over there in the corner will take the job for 30K and will take a month longer (or so they think). Then, after 30K becomes 90K and the company is slowly sliding downhill that original 3 months and 50K estimate starts to look pretty good, but then the sunk cost fallacy kicks in and for an additional 10K (over the 90K) this time they'll get it right. And then finally the time will be up, the money will be gone and they'll have to shop for someone who will take on the task to fix it on a contingency basis in the next month or so. This plays out over and over again for some strange reason. So yes, A players are a bargain, but only after the money to pay for them has been pissed out the window.

timbofoo 11y ago

I see the whiteboard coding test as an attitude-test. If you have too much attitude to sit down and write some code for an hour, then you aren't someone I want in my company. It shouldn't be hard if you're skilled. Sorry to be that way, but that's the way I (and we) see it.

trhway 11y ago
you've just failed my attitude test because you started talking about attitude :) The reason for that is that chalking something up to attitude as a first or major explanation usually is just mental cheating on your part - in the particular case of whiteboarding issues there may be a lot of reasons for different people other than attitude, i'd venture to guess that attitude is never a reason (until of course it is a director/VP candidate and one of my friends suggests the candidate to write a sort, any sort ... even here i think the first was [lack of] such ability and the attitude was only masking it :)
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slapresta 11y ago
So, if they aren't willing to go through whatever random whiteboard bullshit you decide is due, then they can't join your company? Sounds like you're doing them a favor, not the other way around...
wkimeria 11y ago
Do employees at your company write all their code on whiteboards, without access to documentation, the internet and etc. And then when they have perfected the code they transfer it to a computer? If not, then you are not really interviewing for the right skills are you?
draw_down 11y ago
That cuts both ways, hombre. If you're not willing to think about the serious problems with conducting interviews that way, I don't wanna work with you either. Plus you literally just came out and admitted that it's not actually about measuring technical skill, it's some run-you-through-the-gauntlet "attitude" bullshit. Gimme a break.

philovivero 11y ago

> Anyone who's made it onto an Olympiad team[1] of any significant geographical scale, in any category, shouldn't have to deal with this whiteboard nonsense. Oh yeah? I've interviewed my fair share of self-righteous prima-donna "I shouldn't have to deal with you plebes" sorts before to know you'd better put them through MORE of this whiteboard nonsense rather than less. And if they get all huffy, you know that when they make a pile of shit, they'll be the quickest out the door to run away from it leaving those of us with work ethic behind to clean it up. Credentials mean precisely jack and shit to me. I want someone bright and humble.

bpchaps 11y ago
You sound unnecessarily angry and your interview style seems far more formal than it needs to be. Think their issue might be with you? ;)
- philovivero 11y ago
  You'd be wrong. A vast majority of people find me very personable. I'm only talking about this microcosm of human interaction.
  - kafkaesq 11y ago
    That's the thing -- lots of personable, well-adjusted people do all kind of weird things when plunked into that bizarre "microcosm" of human interaction known as the hiring process.
    - bpchaps 11y ago
      Yep, and to add - interviews are almost never as reciprocal as they should be. I've been to 20 interviews or so in the past two months and the common pattern with the worst companies is a near complete lack of reciprocal respect and almost hazing (like GP does). The best listen to what's said and evaluate the content and the character at the same time without the need to do "extra whiteboarding" to prove some...thI'm not sure what it actually proves. What does it prove? I'm really at a loss there. Another thing about those nonreciprocal interviews is that they they tend to be led by significantly less talented folk in comparison. My friend Peter might know why.... ;)

jlees 11y ago

Just because you are smart enough to compete in an Olympiad doesn't mean you can function practically on a software engineering team. Whiteboard coding helps the interviewer see how you think and function as well as "can you solve this problem"; though I agree that it's not necessarily the best way to evaluate those capabilities, it's the best tool some companies have.

vonmoltke 11y ago
I don't really see that. I think whiteboard coding is one of many ways a team could function and that how a candidate performs on it is not generalizable. For instance, I have never written code, pseudo or otherwise, on a whiteboard outside of an interview in over eight years of writing code full-time. Hell, I used a whiteboard more in my four years as an EE and two years as a SysE than I have as a SysE/SwE.
- jlees 11y ago
  It depends how you evaluate the exercise -- for example, don't mark the candidate on correct code and syntax, but reasoning ability, communication, and problem solving. Whiteboard code interviews also have the flaw that the type of problem they tend to cover is not one you might run into in daily coding, so the way the candidate thinks and communicates is seen through a very particular lens - but my point is that given an Olympiad-level candidate who can clearly solve those kinds of problems, I think there is still value to be had from watching them solve them. I prefer whiteboarding systems design/architectural concepts, which is definitely something I do in the course of my regular work.
kafkaesq 11y ago
Whiteboard performance (positive/negative) doesn't correlate all that well with practical performance on engineering teams, either.
- jlees 11y ago
  Oh, I can believe that. But the way said performance is measured -- both types -- is extremely varied. I'd summarize my viewpoint as "whiteboard interviews tell you something about how the candidate thinks and communicates, which you can use to jump into deeper explorations". Just because you know someone is smart enough to solve a problem doesn't mean it's not valuable to see how they do it.

rcheu 11y ago

If you were on your country's IOI team, you shouldn't be complaining about whiteboard problems. I think the major flaw of interviews is that if you did competitive programming ever, they're super easy. If you did Olympiad training and are still bad at whiteboard/algorithms, I think that's actually a reasonable signal.

akamaka 11y ago
Spot on! Every good competition coder I've met loves the whiteboard part of the interview and would happily crack away at problems for hours.
- kafkaesq 11y ago
  If you think the only good coders are competitions coders... then put that in your posted job requirements: "Must l-o-v-e solving hyperidealized problems with clearcut answers, under gratuitous time pressure, while being watched with others (who already know the answer). For hours on end. Because that's what we do all day here. Serial olympiadists, hackerrank aficciandos, and other competition coders only need apply." It's really quite simple to do, and will (by drastically narrowing your candidate pool) make your filtering process much easier, I'm sure.
  - akamaka 11y ago
    I was responding to what the OP said about how he has lots of olympiad experience but didn't like demonstrating coding in interviews, which sounds bogus to me. I'll be honest, I did rate coding interviews as very important, but I changed my mind after working with some really great people who do really badly at them.
    - kafkaesq 11y ago
      From my reading of the blogpost, I don't see any reason to infer that he "didn't like demonstrating coding in interviews", per se. He did suggest that some of the problems one gets asked to solve are gratuitously hard, which correlates with my own experience. He also fairly acknowledged that he was getting a lot of rejection for other, e.g. cultural reasons. So it would seem that it's getting rejected, not "demonstrating coding in interviews" that he doesn't like.