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>since the entire field is about solving problems efficiently. The entire theoretical CS field yes. In the practical field of CS engineering, this is only a su

>since the entire field is about solving problems efficiently. The entire theoretical CS field yes. In the practical field of CS engineering, this is only a subset of the useful competences and a small one at that. Communication, working as part of team, reliability, ability to look up and learn things you don't currently know, caring about the state of the code you write, mentoring others, being able/willing to push for things you believe can be done better (not just in terms of algorithm, but processes affecting the entire business) etc. are all as important. I would much rather hire someone that sucks in algos/data structure, but is fairly good on all those other points than the opposite. So yes, whiteboarding can be useful to assess how a candidate is doing on one of the specific skills that are useful for a CS engineer, but if 50% to 90% of your hiring decision is based on that, just like it is in FANGs today, you have an inadequate hiring process IMHO. For the average SDE job. If your job is to implement and optimize a compiler, then sure it's extremely important.

oriolid 5y ago
I used to have a co-worker exactly like you describe. He was great for consulting business: the clients liked him him so much that they hired two additional consultants. One to fix everything that he broke and another to do the job he was supposed to do and took credit for.
- sailingparrot 5y ago
  Statistics tell me two things: * A sample of one is not relevant * You also used to have many other coworkers that weren't very good at whiteboarding, since even very good engineering teams in FANGS have many people like that, and that didn't have that problem since you specifically said you had one occurence of that. So hear me out: maybe there isn't a single predictor that you can just automatically throw at interviewees, like a hard leet code problem, and hope that it will magically filter out the very best engineers for you to pick from. Maybe you should have an interview process that test the different areas I mentioned proportionally to what the actual job you are recruiting for requires.
  - oriolid 5y ago
    I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me, but I can tell you that this ex-coworker would have been more convincing.

oriolid 5y ago

I used to have a co-worker exactly like you describe. He was great for consulting business: the clients liked him him so much that they hired two additional consultants. One to fix everything that he broke and another to do the job he was supposed to do and took credit for.

sailingparrot 5y ago
Statistics tell me two things: * A sample of one is not relevant * You also used to have many other coworkers that weren't very good at whiteboarding, since even very good engineering teams in FANGS have many people like that, and that didn't have that problem since you specifically said you had one occurence of that. So hear me out: maybe there isn't a single predictor that you can just automatically throw at interviewees, like a hard leet code problem, and hope that it will magically filter out the very best engineers for you to pick from. Maybe you should have an interview process that test the different areas I mentioned proportionally to what the actual job you are recruiting for requires.
- oriolid 5y ago
  I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me, but I can tell you that this ex-coworker would have been more convincing.