It's difficult to gain competency in algorithmic whiteboarding questions without being smart and at least half decent at coding. And without learning what amou

It's difficult to gain competency in algorithmic whiteboarding questions without being smart and at least half decent at coding. And without learning what amounts to a secondary career skill in the art of doing a specific song and dance in front of a room of often ill-prepared and apathetic strangers. Who often grossly overestimate their ability to curate and conduct these sessions. BTW "song and dance" is not meant pejoratively but refers specifically to the "art" of: talking to a room full of randoms while you are allegedly doing original thinking and coding; also, pretending that the problem is novel to you, even making fake pauses and saying "hmm" now and then to make it seem so[1] (when, per the company's instructions, you prepared assiduously for the interview, with the precise goal in mind of anticipating as many of these problems as possible); dealing with their less than helpful interruptions and basically pedantic suggestions; etc. Which is what the whiteboard process seems to optimize for best. [1] There are forums, mentioned in other instances of this perennial thread, where people trade suggestions in precisely this extremely valuable (by whiteboard performance art standards) skill.