I recently had a similar waterboarding, err, whiteboarding experience. My first solution to the first part of the problem was laughably complex (but still corr

I recently had a similar waterboarding, err, whiteboarding experience. My first solution to the first part of the problem was laughably complex (but still correct). I soon arrived at a much simpler version the employer was likely looking for a few moments after. Immediately the interviewer should've known I was affected negatively by being put on the spot. I am an introverted person after all, and I don't program on a giant whiteboard with someone constantly looking over my shoulder. So if my job is to work with someone new every day on a programming problem, someone I am not entirely comfortable around then I guess I'm off the list? The second part of the problem was more complex, and I eventually worked through it, with some leading questions by the interviewer. I did trip up once or twice. Oops, that one part of the program was O(n/2). I did not arrive at that one correctly. I demonstrated I'm comfortable with multiple languages, can reason intelligently about a program and come up with some solutions, iterating on them while demonstrating understanding of big-O notation, but the employer cares about none of these things even if they tell you beforehand that they do. That's pretty much a lie. The employer is simply lazy and has decided the best metric for weeding out candidates are toy problems on a whiteboard.