Well, here's the thing - I've been on a lot of interviews, and the majority of them wouldn't be satisfied with the answers you'd be satisfied with. If intervie

Well, here's the thing - I've been on a lot of interviews, and the majority of them wouldn't be satisfied with the answers you'd be satisfied with. If interviewers were the way you've described, I don't think the whole thing would be such an issue. Overall, yeah, interviewers want to see that hash map largely written, often at a white board. Minor errors and bits of pseudocode are ok, but it should pretty much work. YMMV, of course, but it isn't just me. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog... "Hashtables: hashtables are arguably the single most important data structure known to mankind. You absolutely have to know how they work. Again, it's like one chapter in one data structures book, so just go read about them. You should be able to implement one using only arrays in your favorite language, in about the space of one interview." Of course, Steve Yegge isn't the final word on prepping for google interviews, and I only had one experience there myself, but yeah, I'd say he's pretty spot on here (in fact, the google recruiter who arranged my interviews forwarded me the Yegge blog post, though I'd already read it earlier).