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Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

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Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#231

Post by redisman »

vultour wrote: post #161
nybblesio wrote: post #113

A regular viewer of my daily Twitch programming stream (link is in my profile) asked me to solve a problem he was asked to whiteboard. He wasn't asked to draw diagrams or write pseudo-code so they could learn how well he communicated. He was asked to write the code and it was heavily implied that it must compile and run -- even though whiteboards don't do that. Here's my attempt: https://youtu.be/6LHqrxrC6Uo I solved…

I feel like you're vastly overcomplicating the whole thing. Granted, I don't know if there were any parameters specified other than "Find the largest connected segment in a 2D grid". I had to solve almost the exact same problem very recently. I find the best way to start is to just implement the easiest solution you can think of, such as the array approach you mentioned in the beginning. I did that in 5 - 10 minutes.…

Kudos on being able to "reset"! That's probably the hardest part, fighting against the sunk cost of a snowballing probably wrong answer when you have such limited time.

Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#233

Post by Bahamut »

timr wrote: post #62
remoteorbust wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whiteboard interviews test one thing well: How well does a candidate code on a whiteboard. What if you consider part of someone's job to be communicating concepts to people, possibly with the help of visual aids and diagrams? I hate this concept that if it's not typing code into an editor then it's not "real work". I absolutely communicate with my coworkers using a whiteboard and pseudocode. I reject the idea that…

It's bizarre to me that you think that whiteboard coding tests "communication", in any way. It's not like a presentation, or anything. It's one-sided combat where someone with a secret tries to get someone who doesn't know the secret to regurgitate the secret, on the spot, while pretending that s/he didn't memorize the secret in advance while cramming a great big "Cracking the Programmer Secret" book to prepare for t…

There are plenty of things one can gauge candidates on via the whiteboard. System design, application design, psuedocoding implementation (or real coding, if necessary - it should be natural flowing from psuedocode to implementation though), problem solving with visuals to denote intuition...the possibilities are vast.

There seems to be a bunch of ingenuous assertions here that is characteristic of someone who doesn't think one should have to prove oneself. I'm at a FAANG and we don't even ask anything crazy hard for algorithms/data structures like Google or Facebook does, but our interviews still manage to be intense for technical and soft skills - they will challenge even strong candidates and one cannot pass the interview without displaying strong technical acumen or communication skills.

There is so much more to technical assessment than just coding. A whiteboard is just a standard medium for communicating ideas in a collaborative manner that still works the best for any sort of deep collaborative design when compared to any other medium so far.

Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#234

Post by tluyben2 »

vultour wrote: post #165
privacypoller wrote: post #57

All of these interviewing "tools" (or tricks) attempt to be time/cost efficient proxies for doing the damn job, and they all suck. * Whiteboard coding is awesome for software development shops that don't actually own computers or use punch cards to load programs. * Shared coding environments with a time limit works well when you want to double screen for someone who can also diffuse suspicious packages that arrive at…

Riddles are the worst, I was recently asked the "You have a 5 litre and a 3 litre container, how do you get 4 litres" question (never heard it before). It's so simple to figure out if you're on your own and just play around with the idea. When asked on the spot I just kept thinking "hey these people want an answer NOW, don't make them wait" while feeling their stare, and couldn't figure it out without help.

I guess if you are old enough you'll know that one from the movie. Doesn't mean you remember how they solved it (because what did I care at the time?). Nothing to do with programming unless someone asks you to write a short program to figure out the most efficient (least steps) on how to do it. Behind a computer.

Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#235

Post by tluyben2 »

ggggtez wrote: post #182
nybblesio wrote: post #113

A regular viewer of my daily Twitch programming stream (link is in my profile) asked me to solve a problem he was asked to whiteboard. He wasn't asked to draw diagrams or write pseudo-code so they could learn how well he communicated. He was asked to write the code and it was heavily implied that it must compile and run -- even though whiteboards don't do that. Here's my attempt: https://youtu.be/6LHqrxrC6Uo I solved…

I think it's trivial to code an optimal solution (and discuss tradeoffs) in 45 minutes on a whiteboard. It's just BFS or DFS. Of course most people prefer to interview in a language which is less verbose than C++, which saves time.

Perhaps it is trivial, but what's the point? If you can reason what algo to use and reason how to determine which one will be the most efficient of the two without testing them both (or explain the abstraction which allows you to test them both without significant overhead in code), it should be enough.

Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#236

Post by redisman »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #190

Having just been through this process (landed a new job after a 2-month search), the worst part about whiteboard coding is how humiliated you feel if you don't get it right or don't know where to start. Is it really necessary to do that to candidates? I've been doing this for 15+ years professionally, have a master's in CS and I struggled to answer many questions. Just stood there blinking like a goldfish. If compani…

Same. Being so far out of school (10 years in the industry) I really struggle a ton with these interviews. It's really only 10% relevant to my day to day work. I think to get through a Google-level onsite I would probably have to practice for a year, couple of hours a day. I just got a new job at a company that doesn't do any algorithm testing and that's how it's always been. I guess I'm maybe in the "false negative" threshold that all the hot companies are fine with.

Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#237

Post by sieabahlpark »

bradenb wrote: post #2

VP of Engineering at Eaze, previously CTO at Getable and engineer at Yammer. No, not at all. Whiteboard interviews test one thing well: How well does a candidate code on a whiteboard. Engineers on my team never have to code on a whiteboard (whiteboards are really bad at running code), why would I make candidates do something that I don't ask the engineers already on my team to do? This comes close, but I think the re…

When's the next 50% off sale?

Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#238

Post by LaserToy »

loxias wrote: post #148
techwraith wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're less concerned with the resulting code than we are about your ability to explain the code that you wrote and your ability to prove to us that you have good judgement when making technical decisions. Also, we're growing fast enough that we're rarely comparing candidates. If we can hire both the apple and the orange (assuming both candidates are evaluated to be good for the role), we will.

I'm actively looking/interviewing and really like the "cut of your jib". (both your answers here, plenty of aspects of Eaze as a company, the prospect of moving back to SF...) For both the sr backend and devops positions, how important to the roles is familiarity/experience with your technical stack? I might have some of the skill set/experience you're looking for -- sr backend engineer, sr systems engineer, devops a…

Do you want to work for PlayStation Network team? We have plenty of open positions from DevOps to server or client side developers. And variety of work also there - commerce, social, video streaming, distributes databases, big data, ml.

You name it, we are doing it.

Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#239

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

majormajor wrote: post #227
pkteison wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time an interviewer has told me something like this, they then nitpick syntax and appear to be primarily concerned with "does my whiteboard code compile" sorts of problems. And getting stuck / asking for help feels like I get docked for getting stuck. Same with less optimized. So it's hard to trust such an explanation - clearly my interview would be better if I came up with the perfectly optimized solution, or…

All these discussions conflate a related, but separate problem with tech interviewing: most tech interviewers don't have much experience interviewing, and have never had good coaching on interviewing, and as a result mostly suck at it. Picking on whiteboard code for not compiling is not good interview technique. But it's also a common enough failing that it's hard to say a bad interviewer in that regard means a bad w…

Bad workplaces are so common though that it’s a perfectly good heuristic to guess that if a place asks you to do whiteboard questions it’s a bad engineering workplace. You’re not missing much by passing, and the heuristic probably won’t be wrong much.

Re: Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

#240

Post by LaserToy »

teachrdan wrote: post #5
bradenb wrote: post #2

VP of Engineering at Eaze, previously CTO at Getable and engineer at Yammer. No, not at all. Whiteboard interviews test one thing well: How well does a candidate code on a whiteboard. Engineers on my team never have to code on a whiteboard (whiteboards are really bad at running code), why would I make candidates do something that I don't ask the engineers already on my team to do? This comes close, but I think the re…

There's some logic to that. It's the one of the same reasons we have high stakes exams in school: to show what the individual can do under pressure. In an interview setting you can't simulate what it's like to be at the end of a high-intensity sprint, but you can ask the candidate to answer a tough question on a whiteboard and (ideally) get a notion of how they work when the going gets tough.

And what is it measuring exactly? In real life you don’t get the score. You either did it or not. Nobody cares about how you did it, only answer matters.

And interviews are not pressuring, they are simple. No hard desisions, no anxiety whether it is going to work. You in and 5 hours later you out. Lame.

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