It's important to remember that it's also YOU interviewing THEM. The coding interview is an opportunity to get to know the company culture in a very feet-on-th

It's important to remember that it's also YOU interviewing THEM. The coding interview is an opportunity to get to know the company culture in a very feet-on-the-ground fashion. How the interviewer behaves and how they expect you to do things reflects upon them as managers, mentors, and in general people you'll be working with for potentially a long time. - If they're forcing you to go against your natural flow, that's a red flag. - If they're preventing you from building or explaining things as you'd normally do on the job, that's a red flag. - If they don't allow you to consult the resources you'd normally do, that's a red flag. - If they prevent you from testing your work and assumptions as you'd normally do, that's a red flag. - If they're only looking for work and no conversation (all questions to you and none to them), that's a red flag. I've had times during an interview where I've had to pause everything and explain that this is how I work, and how I would work if I were hired. Usually the interviewer will stop, reassess, apologize and we move on no harm no foul. I've also had occasion to stop the interview and say that we're not going to be a good fit, sorry and goodbye. It's on YOU, the interviewee, to make sure that you're not getting bullied or coerced (either accidentally or deliberately). This is not a one-way street. If you don't push back, at best you get hired into an abusive or incompetent environment, and at worst they reject you after toying with you, wasting even more of your time and sapping your morale. Yeah, it's a bad time when one hires a bad employee, but it's MUCH MUCH worse to get hired into a bad company! You're taking a bigger risk than they are, so make sure you interview them well! Breaking off an interview is not a bad thing; you're assessing THEM as much as they are assessing you, and eliminating the deadwood early is in your best interests, because YOUR time and resources are precious too. Remember: THEY can fail phone screens, too.