4 ms·

2006 is ancient history. But also, it's a basic interview technique to explain your thinking out loud.

throwaway6532 4y ago
Yeah, in my experience this is really what it's all about. Thinking out loud helps them assess how you reason through trade-offs, potential ideas you run through, edge cases you catch, at what stage you catch them and how you go about addressing them etc.
- jkubicek 4y ago
  Thinking out-loud also prevents candidates from going completely off the rails. Maybe they missed an important detail or are solving a different problem than what the interviewer intended. These things happen, better to catch them early in the interview.
kragen 4y ago
Wouldn't that fail unless your thinking is as slow as speech?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hedora 4y ago
  Not if you can compress your thinking it into something short. Good code interviews test communication skills too.
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    No, they don't, generally. When was the last time you were required to compose code in a real world situation, in front of someone, while talking through your thought process, all under time pressure and in a high-stakes environment?
    - kragen 4y ago
      Every time I pair program. Also sometimes I've given talks that way. I like it, I guess not everybody does.
      - actually_a_dog 4y ago
        You pair program under time pressure similar to interview conditions? Really? I find that hard to believe. As for giving talks that way, I would not say that qualifies as a high stakes environment. Your likely worst case scenario is that either your code or some bit of technology involved doesn't work right, so you laugh it off and explain what was supposed to happen.
        kragen 4y ago
        When I'm working on a product I'm under time pressure: we need to get this feature done so we can move on to the next, or we need to fix this bug — possibly the site is down, or the customer's system is compromised, until we get it done. In an interview there's a sort of "pressure" but it's like the pressure of playing a video game or taking a math test or lifting weights: I'm working hard to do my best, but nothing really depends on it. It's just a difficult challenge I'm completing, the only purpose being to see (and, well, show) how well I can complete it. The worst case scenario in a talk is that I say something stupid and get really dogmatic and defensive about it, leading the hundreds of people watching the talk to conclude that I'm an ignorant jerk, which, well, I can be, but I'd rather they didn't overestimate the frequency of that! I could lose face. The worst case scenario in an interview is that the person interviewing me says something stupid and gets really dogmatic and defensive about it, and then they and their company lose face. Oh, and they could decide not to offer me the job. But that's never been much of a problem, and it's certainly no big deal — if you're only interviewing for jobs you're almost sure to be offered, you should probably interview for more advanced positions. Not being offered a job is far from "losing out on a big opportunity", as you said in your other comment. A job gives you money enough to live on, but if you're a programmer jobs that pay a living wage are plentiful. (But less plentiful if people go to your talks and decide you're a nincompoop or a scumbag.)

Yeah, in my experience this is really what it's all about. Thinking out loud helps them assess how you reason through trade-offs, potential ideas you run through, edge cases you catch, at what stage you catch them and how you go about addressing them etc.

jkubicek 4y ago
Thinking out-loud also prevents candidates from going completely off the rails. Maybe they missed an important detail or are solving a different problem than what the interviewer intended. These things happen, better to catch them early in the interview.

kragen 4y ago

Wouldn't that fail unless your thinking is as slow as speech?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hedora 4y ago
Not if you can compress your thinking it into something short. Good code interviews test communication skills too.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  No, they don't, generally. When was the last time you were required to compose code in a real world situation, in front of someone, while talking through your thought process, all under time pressure and in a high-stakes environment?
  - kragen 4y ago
    Every time I pair program. Also sometimes I've given talks that way. I like it, I guess not everybody does.
    - actually_a_dog 4y ago
      You pair program under time pressure similar to interview conditions? Really? I find that hard to believe. As for giving talks that way, I would not say that qualifies as a high stakes environment. Your likely worst case scenario is that either your code or some bit of technology involved doesn't work right, so you laugh it off and explain what was supposed to happen.
      - kragen 4y ago
        When I'm working on a product I'm under time pressure: we need to get this feature done so we can move on to the next, or we need to fix this bug — possibly the site is down, or the customer's system is compromised, until we get it done. In an interview there's a sort of "pressure" but it's like the pressure of playing a video game or taking a math test or lifting weights: I'm working hard to do my best, but nothing really depends on it. It's just a difficult challenge I'm completing, the only purpose being to see (and, well, show) how well I can complete it. The worst case scenario in a talk is that I say something stupid and get really dogmatic and defensive about it, leading the hundreds of people watching the talk to conclude that I'm an ignorant jerk, which, well, I can be, but I'd rather they didn't overestimate the frequency of that! I could lose face. The worst case scenario in an interview is that the person interviewing me says something stupid and gets really dogmatic and defensive about it, and then they and their company lose face. Oh, and they could decide not to offer me the job. But that's never been much of a problem, and it's certainly no big deal — if you're only interviewing for jobs you're almost sure to be offered, you should probably interview for more advanced positions. Not being offered a job is far from "losing out on a big opportunity", as you said in your other comment. A job gives you money enough to live on, but if you're a programmer jobs that pay a living wage are plentiful. (But less plentiful if people go to your talks and decide you're a nincompoop or a scumbag.)