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I've walked out on a couple of interviews when they tried whiteboard coding. I politely laughed and said I really don't do performance art. I thanked them for

I've walked out on a couple of interviews when they tried whiteboard coding. I politely laughed and said I really don't do performance art. I thanked them for their time and left.

drenvuk 5y ago
What? What would you rather have? A takehome? People find a reason to complain about those as well because the ones administering them become really god damned nitpicky. What I try to give is a three parter simple string parsing manipulation question where you build on each successive part as well as providing both valid and invalid inputs for them to use as test cases. It shows organizational skills and the ability to break down problems into reusable parts as well as the super basics of string parsing. I think being able to do that much under time pressure shows the learned qualities of a programmer since most will go with what's been ingrained into them by way of habit. I can understand brain teasers being a poor measure of ability but I'm super on board for online whiteboarding when done properly. 45 minutes, no muss, no fuss. No 6 hours on a weekend to make something. No impenetrable question that requires tricks you don't need for day to day work that you can later look up.
- shados 5y ago
  There's more and more companies that don't give you coding exercises at all. They'll have code reviews, or a debugging exercise, system design, all the other stuff, but will skip the algo question. I hate algo/whiteboarding myself, especially complex ones, but I think there's some value in doing some minimal in person fizz-buzzing, especially if you work for a very popular company. The amount of people who can talk through interviews all day long but can't code is too high not to at least attempt to filter them out. What I do is give a very simple question, and make it clear that its not a "gotcha" question and that I just want to talk through with them how they'd solve it, to at least filter out the "deer in headlights" candidates. No one walked out of that to this day.
  - sys_64738 5y ago
    Whiteboarding is a skill you would use at most large companies. I've driven many design discussions via white boarding on the job. Being able to do it in a job interview shows you possess such a skill for interactive design.
    - shados 5y ago
      Whiteboarding in general? Absolutely. Writing a java sort function on a white board? Much less so.
- davidw 5y ago
  > takehome They’re all bad options in some way, but at least takehomes simulate how most people actually approach a project, rather than sitting there trying to do something while someone stares at you. Some of us really, really hate that.
  - drenvuk 5y ago
    Well here's something that may make you feel a bit better about interviewing: When I'm asking you a technical question, I'm looking at the code you're writing, not you. The camera is only on to make sure you're not lip synching or something. The layout of your code and the logic that went into it is more important than your mannerisms. I refuse takehomes on principle because I've had enough bad experiences with poor reviewers so I'll never give one out.
- b20000 5y ago
  whiteboard/leetcode is not necessary. discuss a prior project and walk through code of a prior project and discuss it. if you don’t have a prior project, build one. takes only a few days and you will have a new asset you own the IP to. if your interviewers don’t do it this way, pass politely.
  - drenvuk 5y ago
    This would only be one facet to an interview and definitely not the entire technical portion.
    - b20000 5y ago
      that IS the technical portion. You don't need the typical leetcode BS questions.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  > What would you rather have? Ideally? Not to assume my resume/education experience is a lie and to instead assume that I've done enough technical work by this point to merit respect that I don't need to prove some "technical merit" via any sort of whiteboarding exercise that is neither anything like day-to-day technical work nor it is it much more than time wasting busy work to give interviewers plenty of room for excuses on why they don't like people. But, I'm in a minority opinion in general that I'd rather see the industry mature and if it needs to build a standardized test like the MCAT or the Bar Exam or PE certification to stop asking trivia questions in interviews it should just build a standardized test and stop wasting everyone's time.
  - asimpletune 5y ago
    I mean we could have like a bar but that would severely limit opportunities of smart people who can code. It’s one of the best/worst things about our industry. Personally, I wouldn’t suffer, but I think as an industry we're unique in this way and it’s kind of overall maybe slightly better than not.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
      > that would severely limit opportunities of smart people who can code Whether or not that's true, is it really important? I guess it depends on your perspective. Do you think the industry exists to provide job opportunities, or to solve real business problems?
      - asimpletune 5y ago
        I think by serving an alternative way of doing things we're a nice position to imagine making that comparison. So, which industries are more innovative software/tech or those that have some kind of standards/gate-keeping? Admittedly it's not like a super fair comparison because we're still in the a very nascent phase of software as an industry, but I think as a concept the question still poses merit. Maybe when the industry matures more we'll finally establish a bar, but in the meanwhile I think most of the money people feel that there's just too much work to do for that to happen. Personally, I don't really know what's the optimal way to do things. Mainly my point is that it's interesting that we even exist. Like, we are one of the only "professionals" who don't have any standards to adhere... and this is precisely why interviews are so hard in our field. Sometimes they're asinine, as has been discussed here. (FWIW I try really hard to be a good interviewer and to give the candidate a pleasant experience and to design everything so they feel fairly judged and I get good signal)
asimpletune 5y ago
But that is sort of a performance art response isn’t it? Unless you think that whiteboard interviews are so bad that they’re universally seen as wholly inappropriate. The thing is they’re not. Sometimes we want to see code that runs and compiles. Sometimes people want to see how you think. Whiteboard interviews are designed to do the later, because coding is not thinking. I think the whole whiteboard interview = bad phase of blog posts from thought leaders was half hot takes from people who didn’t like how they were evaluated in that dimension, and half actually companies trying to push products that they sell. I don’t however think the consensus among senior engineers ever really bought that. It was more nuanced, like a “yeah, it’s not the only thing we should do, but programming interviews with an IDE shouldn’t come at the permanent exclusion of whiteboard interviews altogether” sort of thing.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  Suppose a chef interviews for a kitchen. Rather than anyone testing the chef on his or her ability, they test them on their poetry. That’s exactly analogous to whiteboard interviews. You can feel however you want to feel, and no one will change your mind. The fact is, you never code on a whiteboard. You’re not testing ability.
  - asimpletune 5y ago
    But you do code on a whiteboard?
KaiserPro 5y ago
fuck take home work. I am not going to spend three hours of work, when I'd rather be doing something else, only to be fucking ghosted. (times by godknows how many companies.) I got bought out by a FAANG and I am eternally grateful that I "only" had to do four interviews to keep my job. Rather than the real time coding horse shit.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Damn, you got lucky! A FAANG on the CV without preparing leetcode BS for months! I had one of the guys I was managing in a startup get into the AI company that Google bought without leetcoding. I was pretty jelly but still determined not to spend months on leetcoding, dealing with shitty big org politics, performance reviews and having to work from the office (it was still back in the days when people were free to work from the office). Without the cost of leetcoding I could probably tolerate it for a couple of years and resell myself as a Xers for the rest of my career. With leetcoding and the risk of failure, fuck that.
  - KaiserPro 5y ago
    Well it was quite cute actually. With that still to come, we as a company stopped working on the core business for two weeks and settled down for leetcode practice and mock interviews. We had the luxury of doing it all together and learning form each other in work hours. So it was a lot less stressful than it would have otherwise been. In the UK it's illegal to buy a company and fire/rehire all the staff. The way they got round that was to say that if we didn't agree to waive our rights, we wouldn't get any money. The money we were offered as part of the share settlement was about half what we could expect if we went to court(ie 1/2 a years wage net). The main deal from the evil overlord was "join us and you'll be spaffed with cash" turns out there are a lot of myths about being bought out, its nowhere near as glamorous as we've been lead to believe. but yeah, I don't think I'd have ever really have applied, especially given the silly amount of prep one is supposed to do.
klipklop 5y ago
Guess you will never work at most of FAANG then. I did 5 back-to-back whiteboard leetcode's in one day last time I did that. Was able to provide a working solution for all of them. One of the interviews I was unable to do the optimum solution, but discussed how I think it could be done better. No offer, heh. I have been told that it's now mostly luck getting in. My lunch break person even told me that.
sys_64738 5y ago
I actually love white boarding as it's what I use to design. I find it a way to focus my thoughts and control the conversation. My old office had three walls of white boards though :)
- kerneloftruth 5y ago
  White boards are fine for design ideas with boxes and arrows etc. We're talking about being asked to write code on a white board.

I've walked out on a couple of interviews when they tried whiteboard coding. I politely laughed and said I really don't do performance art. I thanked them for their time and left.

drenvuk 5y ago

What? What would you rather have? A takehome? People find a reason to complain about those as well because the ones administering them become really god damned nitpicky. What I try to give is a three parter simple string parsing manipulation question where you build on each successive part as well as providing both valid and invalid inputs for them to use as test cases. It shows organizational skills and the ability to break down problems into reusable parts as well as the super basics of string parsing. I think being able to do that much under time pressure shows the learned qualities of a programmer since most will go with what's been ingrained into them by way of habit. I can understand brain teasers being a poor measure of ability but I'm super on board for online whiteboarding when done properly. 45 minutes, no muss, no fuss. No 6 hours on a weekend to make something. No impenetrable question that requires tricks you don't need for day to day work that you can later look up.

shados 5y ago
There's more and more companies that don't give you coding exercises at all. They'll have code reviews, or a debugging exercise, system design, all the other stuff, but will skip the algo question. I hate algo/whiteboarding myself, especially complex ones, but I think there's some value in doing some minimal in person fizz-buzzing, especially if you work for a very popular company. The amount of people who can talk through interviews all day long but can't code is too high not to at least attempt to filter them out. What I do is give a very simple question, and make it clear that its not a "gotcha" question and that I just want to talk through with them how they'd solve it, to at least filter out the "deer in headlights" candidates. No one walked out of that to this day.
- sys_64738 5y ago
  Whiteboarding is a skill you would use at most large companies. I've driven many design discussions via white boarding on the job. Being able to do it in a job interview shows you possess such a skill for interactive design.
  - shados 5y ago
    Whiteboarding in general? Absolutely. Writing a java sort function on a white board? Much less so.
davidw 5y ago
> takehome They’re all bad options in some way, but at least takehomes simulate how most people actually approach a project, rather than sitting there trying to do something while someone stares at you. Some of us really, really hate that.
- drenvuk 5y ago
  Well here's something that may make you feel a bit better about interviewing: When I'm asking you a technical question, I'm looking at the code you're writing, not you. The camera is only on to make sure you're not lip synching or something. The layout of your code and the logic that went into it is more important than your mannerisms. I refuse takehomes on principle because I've had enough bad experiences with poor reviewers so I'll never give one out.
b20000 5y ago
whiteboard/leetcode is not necessary. discuss a prior project and walk through code of a prior project and discuss it. if you don’t have a prior project, build one. takes only a few days and you will have a new asset you own the IP to. if your interviewers don’t do it this way, pass politely.
- drenvuk 5y ago
  This would only be one facet to an interview and definitely not the entire technical portion.
  - b20000 5y ago
    that IS the technical portion. You don't need the typical leetcode BS questions.
WorldMaker 5y ago
> What would you rather have? Ideally? Not to assume my resume/education experience is a lie and to instead assume that I've done enough technical work by this point to merit respect that I don't need to prove some "technical merit" via any sort of whiteboarding exercise that is neither anything like day-to-day technical work nor it is it much more than time wasting busy work to give interviewers plenty of room for excuses on why they don't like people. But, I'm in a minority opinion in general that I'd rather see the industry mature and if it needs to build a standardized test like the MCAT or the Bar Exam or PE certification to stop asking trivia questions in interviews it should just build a standardized test and stop wasting everyone's time.
- asimpletune 5y ago
  I mean we could have like a bar but that would severely limit opportunities of smart people who can code. It’s one of the best/worst things about our industry. Personally, I wouldn’t suffer, but I think as an industry we're unique in this way and it’s kind of overall maybe slightly better than not.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
    > that would severely limit opportunities of smart people who can code Whether or not that's true, is it really important? I guess it depends on your perspective. Do you think the industry exists to provide job opportunities, or to solve real business problems?
    - asimpletune 5y ago
      I think by serving an alternative way of doing things we're a nice position to imagine making that comparison. So, which industries are more innovative software/tech or those that have some kind of standards/gate-keeping? Admittedly it's not like a super fair comparison because we're still in the a very nascent phase of software as an industry, but I think as a concept the question still poses merit. Maybe when the industry matures more we'll finally establish a bar, but in the meanwhile I think most of the money people feel that there's just too much work to do for that to happen. Personally, I don't really know what's the optimal way to do things. Mainly my point is that it's interesting that we even exist. Like, we are one of the only "professionals" who don't have any standards to adhere... and this is precisely why interviews are so hard in our field. Sometimes they're asinine, as has been discussed here. (FWIW I try really hard to be a good interviewer and to give the candidate a pleasant experience and to design everything so they feel fairly judged and I get good signal)

asimpletune 5y ago

But that is sort of a performance art response isn’t it? Unless you think that whiteboard interviews are so bad that they’re universally seen as wholly inappropriate. The thing is they’re not. Sometimes we want to see code that runs and compiles. Sometimes people want to see how you think. Whiteboard interviews are designed to do the later, because coding is not thinking. I think the whole whiteboard interview = bad phase of blog posts from thought leaders was half hot takes from people who didn’t like how they were evaluated in that dimension, and half actually companies trying to push products that they sell. I don’t however think the consensus among senior engineers ever really bought that. It was more nuanced, like a “yeah, it’s not the only thing we should do, but programming interviews with an IDE shouldn’t come at the permanent exclusion of whiteboard interviews altogether” sort of thing.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
Suppose a chef interviews for a kitchen. Rather than anyone testing the chef on his or her ability, they test them on their poetry. That’s exactly analogous to whiteboard interviews. You can feel however you want to feel, and no one will change your mind. The fact is, you never code on a whiteboard. You’re not testing ability.
- asimpletune 5y ago
  But you do code on a whiteboard?

KaiserPro 5y ago

fuck take home work. I am not going to spend three hours of work, when I'd rather be doing something else, only to be fucking ghosted. (times by godknows how many companies.) I got bought out by a FAANG and I am eternally grateful that I "only" had to do four interviews to keep my job. Rather than the real time coding horse shit.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
Damn, you got lucky! A FAANG on the CV without preparing leetcode BS for months! I had one of the guys I was managing in a startup get into the AI company that Google bought without leetcoding. I was pretty jelly but still determined not to spend months on leetcoding, dealing with shitty big org politics, performance reviews and having to work from the office (it was still back in the days when people were free to work from the office). Without the cost of leetcoding I could probably tolerate it for a couple of years and resell myself as a Xers for the rest of my career. With leetcoding and the risk of failure, fuck that.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  Well it was quite cute actually. With that still to come, we as a company stopped working on the core business for two weeks and settled down for leetcode practice and mock interviews. We had the luxury of doing it all together and learning form each other in work hours. So it was a lot less stressful than it would have otherwise been. In the UK it's illegal to buy a company and fire/rehire all the staff. The way they got round that was to say that if we didn't agree to waive our rights, we wouldn't get any money. The money we were offered as part of the share settlement was about half what we could expect if we went to court(ie 1/2 a years wage net). The main deal from the evil overlord was "join us and you'll be spaffed with cash" turns out there are a lot of myths about being bought out, its nowhere near as glamorous as we've been lead to believe. but yeah, I don't think I'd have ever really have applied, especially given the silly amount of prep one is supposed to do.

klipklop 5y ago

Guess you will never work at most of FAANG then. I did 5 back-to-back whiteboard leetcode's in one day last time I did that. Was able to provide a working solution for all of them. One of the interviews I was unable to do the optimum solution, but discussed how I think it could be done better. No offer, heh. I have been told that it's now mostly luck getting in. My lunch break person even told me that.

sys_64738 5y ago

I actually love white boarding as it's what I use to design. I find it a way to focus my thoughts and control the conversation. My old office had three walls of white boards though :)

kerneloftruth 5y ago
White boards are fine for design ideas with boxes and arrows etc. We're talking about being asked to write code on a white board.