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That's the reason I advise against them. Unless you are the top company in your bracket, your completion rate will also not be so great for a take-home (people

That's the reason I advise against them. Unless you are the top company in your bracket, your completion rate will also not be so great for a take-home (people have limited time: they'll sort by how good your company is). Sure they'll do Google's take-home but local business that does local comp/prevailing wages? It's at the bottom of the pile. By the time they get to it, the best candidates will already have an offer from a better company. That's why I prefer to bring people on-site as soon as possible, and do a little whiteboard (the point being that the candidate must... know how to code!). It's an artificial challenge that's really a pretext to have a technical discussion. Only time I advise to use take-homes is when you are dealing with a massive number of applicants from institutions that have a poor signal to noise ratio. Bootcamps come to mind. But then you end up with candidates that have the homework done by someone else and it ends up not being a good filter either.

berkle4455 3y ago
Whiteboards are skewered just as much on HN. Basically every engineer on here is a 10x and every company should be grateful to even be considered. Apparently we should just review github OSS contributions and how many unit tests they write.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Is it whiteboarding in general, or being asked to write realistic code on the whiteboard? Sketch out rough program structure or system design or whatever Vs Write valid Python to solve some leetcode question
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- gedy 3y ago
  > Apparently we should just review github OSS contributions and how many unit tests they write. No, but speaking from experience - also don't reach out to senior, employed devs for a role, then waste their time with whiteboard leetcode quizzes to "make sure they aren't fakers or coasting, we have sooo many applicants". In those cases, a conversation is really more valuable, we aren't interns.
  - opportune 3y ago
    I gladly participate in whiteboard interviews to ensure I will not have senior+ colleagues who are unable to solve them. The fact that intern candidates can solve them is all the more reason to filter out experienced candidates who can't
    - happymellon 3y ago
      Completely disagree. I've observed other people run whiteboarding session with candidates and "solving them" usually means, "in the way I want" and if you've only just met then thats only going to happen through hints. The "context" (hints) they give different candidates can vary massively, perhaps by the end you've realised that your question is ambiguous, or you like the personality of this other candidate. I've worked with folks who will definitely give attractive women more guidance throughout so they arrive at the "correct" solution and not see what they are doing.
- opportune 3y ago
  I don’t think whiteboards are bad. People greatly exaggerate their difficulty
  - berkle4455 3y ago
    Yep. They evaluate the ability to make sound decisions while in tense situations. I don't want to hire people who implode with a bit of pressure.
    - Exoristos 3y ago
      "The ability to remember rote solutions under pressure." Not a need that comes up in actual software development.
      - drdaeman 3y ago
        > Not a need that comes up in actual software development. I'm not sure. Ability to remain calm and code when shit's on fire can be fairly useful skill at some places (the smaller the company, the more valuable it can be). I've did that, coding emergency patches - e.g. to cache some hot paths when we've got unusual traffic that revealed bottlenecks that we've never hit (and noticed) before. Though I'd say it's a fairly different mental experience than coding at an interview. Also, actually writing code on a whiteboard is a weird skill outside of academic roles. But most places I've seen asked to sketch some crude pseudocode or - better - draw wavy lines and boxes that represent processes and entities, then talk about it (and I think this is fine, whiteboard here is just a convenient tool). And, of course, requiring to remember some algorithms from memory is a rarely useful skill. I've coded even in quite spartan conditions (right in a server room, with an ancient CRT monitor and keyboard, plain vim running on a 80x25 text console) but even then I had one or two Internet-connected devices that I could've used to look things up. If a candidate is allowed (or, better, even encouraged) to search for anything they want - it's all good, of course. Outside of education, no one bothers to remember actual algorithms unless they've used them recently - everyone remembers names and key properties, and optionally remember some core principles (and then either just use them because they're already in a library or popular package, or go look for the implementation details).
- samtho 3y ago
  A good whiteboard problem is geared towards understanding how the candidate thinks and how well they can communicate ideas rather than total correctness. I’ve been the interviewer on a few whiteboard problems, all of which I’ve prefaced with something like, “we want to see how you solve problems and communicate ideas, there are no specific answers we’re looking for. You do not need to go into great detail or even know exactly how to build what you’re suggesting, just how it fits in to the system you’re designing.” Also when I’m designing a rubric for these interviews, the technical competency maybe represents 15% of the total score, 25% for problem solving/adaptability, and 65% communication.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  The whiteboard is standard across all companies, I know how to prepare, and the company has to be at least invested enough to assign an interviewer to it. So I would choose that.
dangus 3y ago
1. On-site Are the best developer candidates looking for on-site roles? I don’t know any that prefer an office setting. 2. Whiteboards Yet another way to test developers on stuff that is unrelated to the work. I don’t even like writing with my hands all that much because I’m on a keyboard all day. I get into a whiteboard and I am being tested on writing skills, how visual my thought process is, how my handwriting is, how comfortable I am in a public speaking position…all great qualities, but all entirely unrelated to programming in a team. Is whiteboarding even a realistic exercise in typical multi-office or remote companies? If I’m presenting to coworkers I’m probably on zoom in my development tools right? That’s not a whiteboard.
- torton 3y ago
  - writing skills - visualization / explanation skills - speaking to a small group of peers all of these are _highly_ relevant to programming in a team beyond the senior level
  - janosdebugs 3y ago
    Visualization maybe, but writing by hand? Until recently (when I started working on an art-related project) writing by hand alone took more concentration than solving actual tasks, not to mention writing in a fashion so someone can read it. I simply didn't write by hand for the last 15+ years.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  after many unceremonious rejections, the first company that wanted an optional onsite interview hired me, after I went onsite. so, people want to hire me when they meet me in person, and I can give more inputs of rapport. data point of 1.

berkle4455 3y ago

Whiteboards are skewered just as much on HN. Basically every engineer on here is a 10x and every company should be grateful to even be considered. Apparently we should just review github OSS contributions and how many unit tests they write.

alistairSH 3y ago
Is it whiteboarding in general, or being asked to write realistic code on the whiteboard? Sketch out rough program structure or system design or whatever Vs Write valid Python to solve some leetcode question
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gedy 3y ago
> Apparently we should just review github OSS contributions and how many unit tests they write. No, but speaking from experience - also don't reach out to senior, employed devs for a role, then waste their time with whiteboard leetcode quizzes to "make sure they aren't fakers or coasting, we have sooo many applicants". In those cases, a conversation is really more valuable, we aren't interns.
- opportune 3y ago
  I gladly participate in whiteboard interviews to ensure I will not have senior+ colleagues who are unable to solve them. The fact that intern candidates can solve them is all the more reason to filter out experienced candidates who can't
  - happymellon 3y ago
    Completely disagree. I've observed other people run whiteboarding session with candidates and "solving them" usually means, "in the way I want" and if you've only just met then thats only going to happen through hints. The "context" (hints) they give different candidates can vary massively, perhaps by the end you've realised that your question is ambiguous, or you like the personality of this other candidate. I've worked with folks who will definitely give attractive women more guidance throughout so they arrive at the "correct" solution and not see what they are doing.
opportune 3y ago
I don’t think whiteboards are bad. People greatly exaggerate their difficulty
- berkle4455 3y ago
  Yep. They evaluate the ability to make sound decisions while in tense situations. I don't want to hire people who implode with a bit of pressure.
  - Exoristos 3y ago
    "The ability to remember rote solutions under pressure." Not a need that comes up in actual software development.
    - drdaeman 3y ago
      > Not a need that comes up in actual software development. I'm not sure. Ability to remain calm and code when shit's on fire can be fairly useful skill at some places (the smaller the company, the more valuable it can be). I've did that, coding emergency patches - e.g. to cache some hot paths when we've got unusual traffic that revealed bottlenecks that we've never hit (and noticed) before. Though I'd say it's a fairly different mental experience than coding at an interview. Also, actually writing code on a whiteboard is a weird skill outside of academic roles. But most places I've seen asked to sketch some crude pseudocode or - better - draw wavy lines and boxes that represent processes and entities, then talk about it (and I think this is fine, whiteboard here is just a convenient tool). And, of course, requiring to remember some algorithms from memory is a rarely useful skill. I've coded even in quite spartan conditions (right in a server room, with an ancient CRT monitor and keyboard, plain vim running on a 80x25 text console) but even then I had one or two Internet-connected devices that I could've used to look things up. If a candidate is allowed (or, better, even encouraged) to search for anything they want - it's all good, of course. Outside of education, no one bothers to remember actual algorithms unless they've used them recently - everyone remembers names and key properties, and optionally remember some core principles (and then either just use them because they're already in a library or popular package, or go look for the implementation details).
samtho 3y ago
A good whiteboard problem is geared towards understanding how the candidate thinks and how well they can communicate ideas rather than total correctness. I’ve been the interviewer on a few whiteboard problems, all of which I’ve prefaced with something like, “we want to see how you solve problems and communicate ideas, there are no specific answers we’re looking for. You do not need to go into great detail or even know exactly how to build what you’re suggesting, just how it fits in to the system you’re designing.” Also when I’m designing a rubric for these interviews, the technical competency maybe represents 15% of the total score, 25% for problem solving/adaptability, and 65% communication.
emodendroket 3y ago
The whiteboard is standard across all companies, I know how to prepare, and the company has to be at least invested enough to assign an interviewer to it. So I would choose that.

dangus 3y ago

1. On-site Are the best developer candidates looking for on-site roles? I don’t know any that prefer an office setting. 2. Whiteboards Yet another way to test developers on stuff that is unrelated to the work. I don’t even like writing with my hands all that much because I’m on a keyboard all day. I get into a whiteboard and I am being tested on writing skills, how visual my thought process is, how my handwriting is, how comfortable I am in a public speaking position…all great qualities, but all entirely unrelated to programming in a team. Is whiteboarding even a realistic exercise in typical multi-office or remote companies? If I’m presenting to coworkers I’m probably on zoom in my development tools right? That’s not a whiteboard.

torton 3y ago
- writing skills - visualization / explanation skills - speaking to a small group of peers all of these are _highly_ relevant to programming in a team beyond the senior level
- janosdebugs 3y ago
  Visualization maybe, but writing by hand? Until recently (when I started working on an art-related project) writing by hand alone took more concentration than solving actual tasks, not to mention writing in a fashion so someone can read it. I simply didn't write by hand for the last 15+ years.
yieldcrv 3y ago
after many unceremonious rejections, the first company that wanted an optional onsite interview hired me, after I went onsite. so, people want to hire me when they meet me in person, and I can give more inputs of rapport. data point of 1.