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> But in practice, these almost always end up being pass-or-fail tests. And if you take just a bit too long, or temporarily forget whether a certain datatype is

> But in practice, these almost always end up being pass-or-fail tests. And if you take just a bit too long, or temporarily forget whether a certain datatype is immutable or not, or even take a bit too much time explaining what you're doing rather than furiously typing or writing your knuckles off... or, horror of horrors, you give a perfectly reasonable answer, but not the one the interviewer "likes" ... It does seem like an opportunity for startups to catch some amazing talent by being more open-minded in these types of interviews. Generally startups have a much smaller interview committee, sometimes even just 1-2 persons, so they can control better for not having these silly criteria.

vanusa 6y ago
Indeed, it's a hidden opportunity both ways. While a dismaying proportion of companies seem to have surrendered to the whiteboarding / leetcode craze, a sizable number have not (or have outgrown it) -- and these tend to be better to work for ways you'd probably expect from that fact.