The whole meme of “coding interviews” can illuminate how a person thinks is based on an entirely false theory of mind. When people are experienced in a particu

The whole meme of “coding interviews” can illuminate how a person thinks is based on an entirely false theory of mind. When people are experienced in a particular skill, they often have reduced inner voice and experience inner quiet as the work just comes to them. Asking people in these circumstances to vocalize their thought process is to take people out of flow conditions into hyper conscious states and perform a metacognitive task, reducing their ability to focus cognitively. When you ask someone to do something they’ve never done in an interview before, you’re creating a contrived environment that doesn’t exist at all on the job. When I’m creatively working through a problem I often take big breaks after framing the problem so my subconscious can work on it. I often solve hard problems from the prior day first thing in the morning, often with the solution immediately on my mind as I awaken. You can’t do that in a coding interview: if someone doesn’t have the answer in mind readily it’s unlikely the pressured environment is going to encourage its production.