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Ask HN: Have anxiety, need help with live coding interviews (funny hat dance)

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Re: Ask HN: Have anxiety, need help with live coding interviews (funny hat dance)

#21

Post by amozoss »

neoncontrails wrote: post #20
fragmede wrote: post #4

Practice, practice, practice. Since you're willing to do the silly hat dance; some thoughts on the type of practice you could do: Program with your laptop hooked up to your TV to your empty living room, to get used to the feeling of being watched. Then have a close and trusted friend be in your living room and just sit quietly. Add a cafe background noise track playing[0]. After you're comfortable with that, stream y…

This is all great advice. I won't pretend that, after a slew of embarrassing incidents early in my career, I've learned to embrace the livecoding interview. No way. I still find the experience stultifying and a bit demeaning. After taking a part-time teaching gig, though, I can confirm that regularly coding in front of a live audience isn't just helpful practice. This will probably sound hokey or hyperbolic to a fell…

Thanks for your perspective.

I like what you're saying in that I should stop worrying about being someone I'm not. Show up and be honest about what I am good at stop focusing on all the puzzles that might show up.

My interview today I felt went a lot better. I at least solved the problem, although it was super easy... but so were the others... I just felt unprepared (and hadn't slept), so I think my brain left me, maybe?

Today I at least had a plan: 1. Write a simple test case first 2. Get the most basic version working 3. iterate from there

It's what I do everyday. I just wish my brain would have remembered that for all the other ones.

Re: Ask HN: Have anxiety, need help with live coding interviews (funny hat dance)

#22

Post by [deleted] »

jamesmcintyre wrote: post #17

I totally agree that coding interviews are broken and if I had to guess the process results in a totally underestimated loss in productivity for organizations. Having been on both sides of the interview process I've tried to think through possible solutions and in doing so I've identified two factors at play. 1. Organizations have to pull busy employees from their work and into interviews which adds even more overhea…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Have anxiety, need help with live coding interviews (funny hat dance)

#24

Post by amozoss »

aliswe wrote: post #14

Why hasn't anyone suggested what I think is obvious ... if you have anxiety on such a level that prohibits you from doing a certain activity during the interview, then you should say so. ?

I do feel like it's rather mild most of the time.

As I said, I don't really understand it myself. It's very strange to lay awake at night though. I feel like it's triggered by stress, but like... not stress I feel like I even care about. Sometimes my body decides it cares to be stressed but my mind doesn't care.

I'm probably just normal and didn't prepare enough /shrug

Re: Ask HN: Have anxiety, need help with live coding interviews (funny hat dance)

#25

Post by voakbasda »

amozoss wrote: post #7
voakbasda wrote: post #6

I have decided that I will end any interviews where the process does not feel right. That means I will not work anywhere that requires leetcode, whiteboarding, live coding, take home tasks, or other exercises that have no bearing on my actual job or thirty years of verifiable past performance. These are all an insulting waste of my time, and I will have none of it anymore. They only demonstrate the willingness to squ…

I'm lucky in that I don't actually need a job yet. Hence the reason I decided to go in pretty much cold-turkey. I wrongly assumed a decade of shipping 5 SaaS products from scratch (some completely by myself), that have real revenue, and thousands of users, sometimes millions. They only want to see me dance with a funny hat on Nothing else seems to matter. I mean I get it, they need to screen people. Is there not anot…

I have suffered life-long anxiety too, with some recent PTSD to make things really fun. I totally get it. Certainly, not needing a job should help, as you should feel like you need to continue with an interview.

Recently, I posted an ad for myself on the monthly "Who wants to be hired" post here on HN, after failing for most of 2021 in searching the "Who's Hiring" posts and applying directly. I got several responses within a day, and one candidate in particular seems to be a remarkably good fit. That has been a stark contrast to my run of unsuccessful interviews, where I was applying and competing alongside an untold number of others.

Interestingly, I had not previously considered applying to this particular employer, though I had seen and envied the position they had listed here (for months!). Since they did not specifically say they would allow fully remote workers in the position, I simply did not bother applying, because I didn't want to waste my time or theirs. If you're an ideal candidate, the right employer will work to accommodate your needs.

YMMV, but I personally have experienced remarkably less anxiety when interviewing with companies that have actively reached out to me. If my current contender doesn't pan out, I'll rewrite my post from scratch each month, until I find my next job. If you go that route, I suspect that you can parlay your success stories into a few worthwhile interviews. Best of luck.

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