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And you were expecting what, exactly? I've had similar using live coding tests, barely minutes in and the candidate is clearly not coding what was specified. A

And you were expecting what, exactly? I've had similar using live coding tests, barely minutes in and the candidate is clearly not coding what was specified. Asked why, they offer criticism of the interview process and an explanation of why their thing (usually a game or some graphical doohickey) is better. This is an instant fail. These tests are as much about interaction and personality as they are technical skill. Which is why your GitHub profile is not relevant until afterwards. You can have a profile full of great looking code, but if you're truculent, uncooperative and insist on being the smartest asshole in the room, you will not be finding work with my team today. Soft skills, people.

white-flame 10y ago
If you were being hired on as a HR person, and asked in the interview to do Scooby Doo impressions and somersaults, would you be uncooperative? Sure, it's an extreme, but that's how most of these sorts of stories are taken by the interviewee, especially for a position that was advertised around very specific credentials or experience.
tluyben2 10y ago
Soft skills are not coding on a whiteboard. Or coding in front of interviewers. You have to be able to discuss what you are planning and how you came up with it; draw some diagrams etc. Having someone write code on a whiteboard and calling that testing soft skills is an instant fail. The smartest asshole as you say probably would do this pthough, not sure good experienced programmers would. I would never insult someone with talent like this.
- beambot 10y ago
  Which only makes me wonder: What will they refuse to do when they're on the job too? Will they storm out in a tizzy because I politely asked them to explain how an algorithm worked using psuedo code on a whiteboard?
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    That is different again from coding on a whiteboard. Pseudocode could be handy although, again, I would prefer people to work it out first and then explain what it does after that. It is very different to explain some idea for a project you are in with your colleagues to them vs standing in front of a strange interview panel producing something that they can theoretical type in and compile. They are hardly related imho.
  - stevetrewick 10y ago
    Exactly this. And we didn't use 'toy' problems like FizzBuzz either, it was 'connect to our DB, pull the following data, do some computation, present it in a UI' kind of stuff. We did this right in the office with the rest of the team so candidates were exposed to our everyday work environment. Got some really great devs that way.
    - tluyben2 10y ago
      We agree but this is different than what reads from your comment. I am not native English but reread it a few times now and it still reads like you approve with the OP in coding on a whiteboard as interview practice and calling that a softskill. But yes what you suggest here is what we do. And that is actually fun for the coder (if not highly anti social) as well as it is for the team too.
- onion2k 10y ago
  stevetrewick wasn't saying soft skills are coding on a whiteboard. The soft skills he's referring to are how you deal with a face-to-face situation. If a candidate believed the coding test is a bad one then they should have raised the issue in a mature adult way (eg having soft skills) rather than either doing their own thing or complaining that the interview question is wrong. Being a good developer requires the ability to write logical, maintainable code of course, but equally it also requires having the ability to talk to other developers, to work with a team, and to explain technical problems to non-technical people. Those are soft skills.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    The original post was about coding on a whiteboard and Steve mentioned interviews LIKE that... But he did not mean that; I was referring to interviews like the original poster.
    - notacoward 10y ago
      > The original post was about coding on a whiteboard ... But he did not mean that ...and the rest of us are supposed to read his mind? Since we're talking about communication skills here, I submit that good communication skills might include stating one's meaning more clearly.
  - notacoward 10y ago
    "The soft skills he's referring to are how you deal with a face-to-face situation." That's a non-credible excuse. If it's really about how you deal with adversarial situations, there's no reason for coding to be involved at all. There are plenty of other scenarios you could role-play that are more realistic and/or more informative wrt what software engineers actually do. Why don't people do those things instead? Generally, because it was never really about communication skills or reactions to stressful/adversarial situations. That's just the rationalization that people who actually did intend to measure coding skill come up with when they're forced to admit that the tool they've chosen is spectacularly ill suited to that purpose. Nobody wants to admit they've wasted so much of their own and others' time.
- stevetrewick 10y ago
  Who said anything about writing code on a whiteboard? And coding tests on our (past tense) code base while sitting in with our team are absolutely testing soft skills. Are you going to ask questions when you get stuck? How are you interacting? There's more to talent than writing code. It amazes me, this attitude that testing for social skills and fit is seen as insulting. Believe me, it's for the candidates benefit as much as the potential employer.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    >Who said anything about writing code on a whiteboard? The original poster and you responded you do similar things. You meant something different I guess. I agree very much with a coder is not supposed to only code; I guess we agree if you take away the specific 'I had to code on a whiteboard without even a computer present' of the OP.
adamors 10y ago
This is different than soft skills though. White board tests test one thing really: your ability to write code under stress while being watched by 2-3 people. I fail to see how that translates to being able to communicate with other people. It's more like asking for a magic trick than actual proof of social skills.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  Yep that is what I got from reply as well but Steve meant it differently and everyone here probably agrees with him!
- AndreyErmakov 10y ago
  Agreed. And many software developers who like to approach work by carefully thinking things through will not be able to accomplish anything in this setup. Also, many are simply not comfortable with the situation and too stressed to be engaged in any kind of intellectual activity. That's not to mention that most cannot do thinking and verbally document the process at the same time. It's either or.
  - Tiquor 10y ago
    You are right. Most cannot. In my experienice, the very good developers can. However, I never judge a person solely on the whiteboard test and I only get to it with the candidates that have shown other indications they are good for our team.
- smt88 10y ago
  > your ability to write code under stress while being watched by 2-3 people But also on a fucking whiteboard! You're thinking about your handwriting, trying to form shapes you've probably never written (like curly brackets). You can't copy/paste and move things around when you notice you made a mistake. You have to remember syntax and stdlib APIs, which is not everyone's strong suit (especially in languages with inconsistent naming like Python and PHP). It's just totally insane to say that whiteboard coding is anything at all like working as a coder.
AndreyErmakov 10y ago
Apparently, he was expecting a constructive dialogue which was never planned to take place. When a professional comes in, he expects to be treated like one. Most people learned to solve basic coding problems when they were at the university like 15 or 20 years ago. Today, 20 years later you should be discussing other things. Otherwise, you're basically starting a dialogue implying the guy slacked off for 20 years inviting him to prove otherwise. It's just no way for two grown-up professionals to approach things. On a side note, try this: make a appointment with a highly reputable dentist (like weeks or months in advance) then go and try asking him some basic questions implying he might not know his stuff. You'll be shown the door in about two minutes, and possibly you'll get a lifetime ban in that establishment. Why should software developers accept to be treated differently? And yes, there are lots of incompetent dentists and doctors of all kinds. Why do they have more respect for themselves than software specialists?
- beambot 10y ago
  I don't know about your analogy... I ask my dentist questions all the time -- and I'm sure my questions are "basic" to them. It's mostly due to my own curiosity and ignorance. I learn a lot in the process, and they seem to enjoy demonstrating their knowledge. (I really like my dentist!)
  - collyw 10y ago
    There is probably quite a difference in asking questions out of genuine curiosity versus asking questions to imply the candidate didn't know what he was talking about.
  - AndreyErmakov 10y ago
    There are different ways of asking questions. You may be asking about things because you genuinely need to learn/understand something, in which case doctors are often eager to explain their stuff. Or you may be asking questions trying to figure out if they know their craft, have run into difficult cases or complications to assess their level of expertise. That's a different story. I once made a mistake of doing the latter, though I did it because I was facing an op and was quite disconcerted perhaps even frightened. At some moment the doctor looked at me with a special look and told me to go consider what I learned today and decide if I was ready for the whole thing. Then I knew I asked too much and all the wrong questions. Given that he was a very experienced specialist, was the chief doctor of that establishment and overall well recommended, the mistake was mine. But in the end it all worked out rather nicely with no grudge-holding.
tn13 10y ago
I have answered around 10 company interviews and cleared 8 of them. I have personally interviewed around 15 people so far. My keys lessons are: 1. Whiteboard coding is not actually about coding. It is about talking with interviewer, coming up with examples and demonstrating a clear cut though process and of course then showing that you can convert idea into code. 2. All this requires very good communication. I always made sure I asked many questions to my interviewers, cares about what problems they solved and treated him as "fellow developer who took time to help me out getting a job" rather than someone who is a judge trying to judge me. 3. What really struck me about OP's rant is that he probably did not invest time in researching how he would be interviewed in first place. All the recruiters who contact you are absolutely clear in telling you what to expect. You were supposed to know what to expect. 4. If the interviewer was rude or indeed "threw" the resume on face, I would strongly recommend informing your recruiter about this. Such person should not be allowed to interview anyone else. 5. As an interviewer you are supposed to help the person get a job by convincing yourself that he could be a good fit in the company. This is not very hard. It is an exercise for you too. You just cant say "write DFS on whiteboard". You must drive the person in right direction, giving hints and even if the person lacks intellect/experience you must make him feel comfortable and good. Even though that person does not get the job eventually you must help him become a better interviewee as he leaves that room. > you're truculent, uncooperative and insist on being the smartest asshole in the room, you will not be finding work with my team today Can not agree more. Often really smart people tend to be humble and love challenges than insisting "this is not the good way to interview me". An intelligent and curious person will not run away from a mentally taxing activity, he would face it bravely and even enjoy it in the process.
- notacoward 10y ago
  > An intelligent and curious person will not run away from a mentally taxing activity, he would face it bravely and even enjoy it in the process. So many fallacies there. You're assuming that intelligent and curious people can't also suffer from social/performance anxiety. What if the person's just very introverted? They could still be an invaluable member of your team, but you'd never know that if you insist on interviewing them in a manner directly contrary to their strengths. What if the person's female, and doesn't want you staring at her butt even more while she writes on the board. Yes, that s* happens. Even worse is the way you use "bravery" to equate distaste with cowardice. I'm sure there are programmers who have exhibited more bravery in more contexts than you ever will, but might still balk at jumping through hoops for you when they could be engaging in more empirically-proven interview methods instead. ~25 times interviewing, on either side of the desk, is not much of a sample. Look to people who have been there hundreds of times individually, thousands of times collectively. You might find that there are more techniques, more pitfalls, and more kinds of people involved than you had ever thought of before you made your appeal to authority. Whiteboard interviews might have their place in some very limited circumstances, but making them a default part of the process is just lazy and sets up a generally unhelpful competitive/hierarchical dynamic. An intelligent and curious person will not run away from other methods, but will face them bravely and enjoy them in the process.
notacoward 10y ago
> truculent, uncooperative and insist on being the smartest asshole in the room There seems to be very little basis for characterizing the OP that way, so now thousands of people reading this on HN get to associate that phrase with your name. What was that about soft skills?
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
I like being challenged by coworkers, so I wouldn't dismiss someone that does it. It is actually a great chance of engaging in a meaningful conversation and hear more about their experience. I like people that can think for themselves and can be diplomatic.

white-flame 10y ago

If you were being hired on as a HR person, and asked in the interview to do Scooby Doo impressions and somersaults, would you be uncooperative? Sure, it's an extreme, but that's how most of these sorts of stories are taken by the interviewee, especially for a position that was advertised around very specific credentials or experience.

tluyben2 10y ago

Soft skills are not coding on a whiteboard. Or coding in front of interviewers. You have to be able to discuss what you are planning and how you came up with it; draw some diagrams etc. Having someone write code on a whiteboard and calling that testing soft skills is an instant fail. The smartest asshole as you say probably would do this pthough, not sure good experienced programmers would. I would never insult someone with talent like this.

beambot 10y ago
Which only makes me wonder: What will they refuse to do when they're on the job too? Will they storm out in a tizzy because I politely asked them to explain how an algorithm worked using psuedo code on a whiteboard?
- tluyben2 10y ago
  That is different again from coding on a whiteboard. Pseudocode could be handy although, again, I would prefer people to work it out first and then explain what it does after that. It is very different to explain some idea for a project you are in with your colleagues to them vs standing in front of a strange interview panel producing something that they can theoretical type in and compile. They are hardly related imho.
- stevetrewick 10y ago
  Exactly this. And we didn't use 'toy' problems like FizzBuzz either, it was 'connect to our DB, pull the following data, do some computation, present it in a UI' kind of stuff. We did this right in the office with the rest of the team so candidates were exposed to our everyday work environment. Got some really great devs that way.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    We agree but this is different than what reads from your comment. I am not native English but reread it a few times now and it still reads like you approve with the OP in coding on a whiteboard as interview practice and calling that a softskill. But yes what you suggest here is what we do. And that is actually fun for the coder (if not highly anti social) as well as it is for the team too.
onion2k 10y ago
stevetrewick wasn't saying soft skills are coding on a whiteboard. The soft skills he's referring to are how you deal with a face-to-face situation. If a candidate believed the coding test is a bad one then they should have raised the issue in a mature adult way (eg having soft skills) rather than either doing their own thing or complaining that the interview question is wrong. Being a good developer requires the ability to write logical, maintainable code of course, but equally it also requires having the ability to talk to other developers, to work with a team, and to explain technical problems to non-technical people. Those are soft skills.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  The original post was about coding on a whiteboard and Steve mentioned interviews LIKE that... But he did not mean that; I was referring to interviews like the original poster.
  - notacoward 10y ago
    > The original post was about coding on a whiteboard ... But he did not mean that ...and the rest of us are supposed to read his mind? Since we're talking about communication skills here, I submit that good communication skills might include stating one's meaning more clearly.
- notacoward 10y ago
  "The soft skills he's referring to are how you deal with a face-to-face situation." That's a non-credible excuse. If it's really about how you deal with adversarial situations, there's no reason for coding to be involved at all. There are plenty of other scenarios you could role-play that are more realistic and/or more informative wrt what software engineers actually do. Why don't people do those things instead? Generally, because it was never really about communication skills or reactions to stressful/adversarial situations. That's just the rationalization that people who actually did intend to measure coding skill come up with when they're forced to admit that the tool they've chosen is spectacularly ill suited to that purpose. Nobody wants to admit they've wasted so much of their own and others' time.
stevetrewick 10y ago
Who said anything about writing code on a whiteboard? And coding tests on our (past tense) code base while sitting in with our team are absolutely testing soft skills. Are you going to ask questions when you get stuck? How are you interacting? There's more to talent than writing code. It amazes me, this attitude that testing for social skills and fit is seen as insulting. Believe me, it's for the candidates benefit as much as the potential employer.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  >Who said anything about writing code on a whiteboard? The original poster and you responded you do similar things. You meant something different I guess. I agree very much with a coder is not supposed to only code; I guess we agree if you take away the specific 'I had to code on a whiteboard without even a computer present' of the OP.

adamors 10y ago

This is different than soft skills though. White board tests test one thing really: your ability to write code under stress while being watched by 2-3 people. I fail to see how that translates to being able to communicate with other people. It's more like asking for a magic trick than actual proof of social skills.

tluyben2 10y ago
Yep that is what I got from reply as well but Steve meant it differently and everyone here probably agrees with him!
AndreyErmakov 10y ago
Agreed. And many software developers who like to approach work by carefully thinking things through will not be able to accomplish anything in this setup. Also, many are simply not comfortable with the situation and too stressed to be engaged in any kind of intellectual activity. That's not to mention that most cannot do thinking and verbally document the process at the same time. It's either or.
- Tiquor 10y ago
  You are right. Most cannot. In my experienice, the very good developers can. However, I never judge a person solely on the whiteboard test and I only get to it with the candidates that have shown other indications they are good for our team.
smt88 10y ago
> your ability to write code under stress while being watched by 2-3 people But also on a fucking whiteboard! You're thinking about your handwriting, trying to form shapes you've probably never written (like curly brackets). You can't copy/paste and move things around when you notice you made a mistake. You have to remember syntax and stdlib APIs, which is not everyone's strong suit (especially in languages with inconsistent naming like Python and PHP). It's just totally insane to say that whiteboard coding is anything at all like working as a coder.

AndreyErmakov 10y ago

Apparently, he was expecting a constructive dialogue which was never planned to take place. When a professional comes in, he expects to be treated like one. Most people learned to solve basic coding problems when they were at the university like 15 or 20 years ago. Today, 20 years later you should be discussing other things. Otherwise, you're basically starting a dialogue implying the guy slacked off for 20 years inviting him to prove otherwise. It's just no way for two grown-up professionals to approach things. On a side note, try this: make a appointment with a highly reputable dentist (like weeks or months in advance) then go and try asking him some basic questions implying he might not know his stuff. You'll be shown the door in about two minutes, and possibly you'll get a lifetime ban in that establishment. Why should software developers accept to be treated differently? And yes, there are lots of incompetent dentists and doctors of all kinds. Why do they have more respect for themselves than software specialists?

beambot 10y ago
I don't know about your analogy... I ask my dentist questions all the time -- and I'm sure my questions are "basic" to them. It's mostly due to my own curiosity and ignorance. I learn a lot in the process, and they seem to enjoy demonstrating their knowledge. (I really like my dentist!)
- collyw 10y ago
  There is probably quite a difference in asking questions out of genuine curiosity versus asking questions to imply the candidate didn't know what he was talking about.
- AndreyErmakov 10y ago
  There are different ways of asking questions. You may be asking about things because you genuinely need to learn/understand something, in which case doctors are often eager to explain their stuff. Or you may be asking questions trying to figure out if they know their craft, have run into difficult cases or complications to assess their level of expertise. That's a different story. I once made a mistake of doing the latter, though I did it because I was facing an op and was quite disconcerted perhaps even frightened. At some moment the doctor looked at me with a special look and told me to go consider what I learned today and decide if I was ready for the whole thing. Then I knew I asked too much and all the wrong questions. Given that he was a very experienced specialist, was the chief doctor of that establishment and overall well recommended, the mistake was mine. But in the end it all worked out rather nicely with no grudge-holding.

tn13 10y ago

I have answered around 10 company interviews and cleared 8 of them. I have personally interviewed around 15 people so far. My keys lessons are: 1. Whiteboard coding is not actually about coding. It is about talking with interviewer, coming up with examples and demonstrating a clear cut though process and of course then showing that you can convert idea into code. 2. All this requires very good communication. I always made sure I asked many questions to my interviewers, cares about what problems they solved and treated him as "fellow developer who took time to help me out getting a job" rather than someone who is a judge trying to judge me. 3. What really struck me about OP's rant is that he probably did not invest time in researching how he would be interviewed in first place. All the recruiters who contact you are absolutely clear in telling you what to expect. You were supposed to know what to expect. 4. If the interviewer was rude or indeed "threw" the resume on face, I would strongly recommend informing your recruiter about this. Such person should not be allowed to interview anyone else. 5. As an interviewer you are supposed to help the person get a job by convincing yourself that he could be a good fit in the company. This is not very hard. It is an exercise for you too. You just cant say "write DFS on whiteboard". You must drive the person in right direction, giving hints and even if the person lacks intellect/experience you must make him feel comfortable and good. Even though that person does not get the job eventually you must help him become a better interviewee as he leaves that room. > you're truculent, uncooperative and insist on being the smartest asshole in the room, you will not be finding work with my team today Can not agree more. Often really smart people tend to be humble and love challenges than insisting "this is not the good way to interview me". An intelligent and curious person will not run away from a mentally taxing activity, he would face it bravely and even enjoy it in the process.

notacoward 10y ago
> An intelligent and curious person will not run away from a mentally taxing activity, he would face it bravely and even enjoy it in the process. So many fallacies there. You're assuming that intelligent and curious people can't also suffer from social/performance anxiety. What if the person's just very introverted? They could still be an invaluable member of your team, but you'd never know that if you insist on interviewing them in a manner directly contrary to their strengths. What if the person's female, and doesn't want you staring at her butt even more while she writes on the board. Yes, that s* happens. Even worse is the way you use "bravery" to equate distaste with cowardice. I'm sure there are programmers who have exhibited more bravery in more contexts than you ever will, but might still balk at jumping through hoops for you when they could be engaging in more empirically-proven interview methods instead. ~25 times interviewing, on either side of the desk, is not much of a sample. Look to people who have been there hundreds of times individually, thousands of times collectively. You might find that there are more techniques, more pitfalls, and more kinds of people involved than you had ever thought of before you made your appeal to authority. Whiteboard interviews might have their place in some very limited circumstances, but making them a default part of the process is just lazy and sets up a generally unhelpful competitive/hierarchical dynamic. An intelligent and curious person will not run away from other methods, but will face them bravely and enjoy them in the process.

notacoward 10y ago

> truculent, uncooperative and insist on being the smartest asshole in the room There seems to be very little basis for characterizing the OP that way, so now thousands of people reading this on HN get to associate that phrase with your name. What was that about soft skills?

NetStrikeForce 10y ago

I like being challenged by coworkers, so I wouldn't dismiss someone that does it. It is actually a great chance of engaging in a meaningful conversation and hear more about their experience. I like people that can think for themselves and can be diplomatic.