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A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

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Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#111

Post by LanceH »

akiselev wrote: post #79
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of jobs I've worked at have required some flexibility in working off hours. Whether it was something that went down at off hours that needed to be addressed, or an unforeseen (and unforseeable) change in a business that required a last minute scramble, these things happen. True, there may be some jobs that are truly 9-5, and if that's the case, so be it. But frankly, as someone who is willing to put…

How does someone know that their coworker with family isn't just a better negotiator than them or that they didn't come at an opportune time when their employer was more desperate for the coworker's skillset? There's a reason there's so much room for plausible deniability in these matters.

Traditionally, having a family is viewed as a positive because you are more likely to get a more stable, longer term worker.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#112

Post by ehsankia »

softwaredoug wrote: post #48

Discussions of interviews always cast a practice as definitively “good” or “bad”. The reality is it depends what the real job will entail. If the job actually requires a lot of white boarding style problem solving, then why not a whiteboard problem solving interview? If the job is a pure heads down coding job, then a more heads down interview seems best...

Not only that, most of those companies probably hire a handful of people per year, but not all of these methods scale to a company hiring thousands. Many of these can also be easily abused and cheated.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#113

Post by miaklesp »

jboy55 wrote: post #44

Its interesting how many of these companies have 'take home' challenges or projects. Even though the companies may say, "This should only take an hour", 99% of the time, it occupies my entire night/weekend, if not in coding but in thought. There's always something more you could do. Its presented as an objective test, but its very subjective, just as much as the whiteboard test. With the whiteboard test, as a candida…

How many nights and weekends should be uselessly wasted on LeetCode to get in shape before the whiteboard interview?

At least learning of new things in CSS will give you new useful knowledge which you can potentially apply in future.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#114

Post by nilkn »

jfasi wrote: post #97
nilkn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the term isn’t very precise, in this context “brainteaser” means precisely the kind of questions asked by Google, etc.

Serious question, because I see this view all the time: how are the algorithms design, architecture, and coding questions asked by Google and friends brain teasers?

They tend to be contrived, artificial, aggressively timeboxed, unrealistically isolated from normal tools one might use, and the desired solution tends to be one that depends on having one or two central creative insights.

Whether they’re a good or bad interviewing technique is a separate topic — I only mean to describe the usage of the term as I’ve seen it in the last 5-10 years.

(Also, to be clear, not every question asked by Google necessarily falls into this category. System design questions in particular tend not to.)

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#115

Post by gerbilly »

astura wrote: post #95

In at least 20 interviews over the years I've never had a white board interview, I assume that's mostly a west coast/SV/startup thing.

> I assume that's mostly a west coast/SV/startup thing.

I guess they feel like they are gathering hard data to back up their hiring decisions—except humans don't choose their allies that way.

It's a technocratic smokescreen.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#116

Post by isoskeles »

ummonk wrote: post #92
acslater00 wrote: post #71

I ask most candidates to write code on a whiteboard in front of me and I’m not apologizing for it! The problem is usually fairly easy and if the candidate cannot get to a “describe solution in words” milestone then I will guide them to one. After that I ask them to write code. I will also tell them “the code is the part I care about”. The specific competency I am evaluating here is “can you turn thoughts into code”.…

If you're testing for their coding process, why do you make them write it out on a whiteboard? Why not provide them a code editor or at least text editor? I like whiteboard interviews, but they should be testing high level design ("describe solution in words / detail in pseudocode"), not coding skills.

How is providing a code editor or text editor different than writing it out on the whiteboard?

I do a similar process and don't care if their syntax is exactly correct. I, maybe different from the person you're responding to, don't care if they use exact libraries in the precisely correct way. But I do care that they're able to come up with a plausible solution.

At a point, I see people gripe about whiteboard interviews and "specific answers" to questions enough that I'm all in on whiteboard interviews. If someone has an attitude problem over it, I don't want to work with them. God only knows how unwilling they'll be to do something simple like look into the source code of some library they're using. "The job description didn't say I had to do this!"

I realize I am being overly-emotional here, but the HN and broader attitude problems around something as simple as writing a for loop on a whiteboard irk me so much at this point, babying and coddling people, apparently older people who I thought knew how to adapt to whatever life sends their way since they weren't the everyone-gets-a-trophy generation.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#117

Post by BurningFrog »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #86
yters wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've interviewed at companies that have interview type puzzles and coding, and take home tests. I greatly prefer the former regarding time use. And, knowing the basic CS algorithms and data structures seems to be a good thing, since they make solving problems easier and lead to cleaner solutions. There's a reason they are considered the fundamentals in CS, even if they are baked into most languages nowadays.

> There's a reason [basic CS algorithms and data structures] are considered the fundamentals in CS, even if they are baked into most languages nowadays. A linked list is such a fundamental piece of technology, and so obvious to anyone that's been working in a language for a while, that I feel it's perfectly acceptable to rule out a candidate who cannot write one. It doesn't have to be perfect, and it doesn't have to…

The linked list is such a fundamental piece of technology that you never have to implement it.

I mean, I understand the linked list quite well, but in my multi decade software career, I've probably actually implemented one less than once a decade. So I think it's a very unrealistic interview question, and will sigh quite hard (internally) when asked to implement one in an interview.

You just can't please everyone...

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#118

Post by takehome1 »

jboy55 wrote: post #44

Its interesting how many of these companies have 'take home' challenges or projects. Even though the companies may say, "This should only take an hour", 99% of the time, it occupies my entire night/weekend, if not in coding but in thought. There's always something more you could do. Its presented as an objective test, but its very subjective, just as much as the whiteboard test. With the whiteboard test, as a candida…

I’ve worked at three companies that usually had candidates complete take home assignments. The subjectivity is part of the point. They want you to only spend an hour or two so they can level you accurately and determine what the interview will look like, if there will be one at all. Most people submitting solutions are usually screened out because they’re empirically inexperienced or unsuited for the role. It’s a red flag if you took more time than suggested. If it’s a long assignment, you could simply say what you would work on next had you more time. If it’s a screening-type assignment you’ll be screened out, and if it’s not, you’ll be invited to onsite if what you said gels with the reviewer.

Most take home submissions I’ve seen are rejected — because of copy-pasted stack overflow code patched together, incorrect solutions, or poor style or organization.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#119

Post by BurningFrog »

isoskeles wrote: post #116
ummonk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're testing for their coding process, why do you make them write it out on a whiteboard? Why not provide them a code editor or at least text editor? I like whiteboard interviews, but they should be testing high level design ("describe solution in words / detail in pseudocode"), not coding skills.

How is providing a code editor or text editor different than writing it out on the whiteboard? I do a similar process and don't care if their syntax is exactly correct. I, maybe different from the person you're responding to, don't care if they use exact libraries in the precisely correct way. But I do care that they're able to come up with a plausible solution. At a point, I see people gripe about whiteboard intervi…

> How is providing a code editor or text editor different than writing it out on the whiteboard?

At least for me, it's vastly better. In an editor, I'm in my element, I have autocomplete, things work they way they usually do and everything is much more comfortable.

I could even throw together some quick tests and test drive my code!

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#120

Post by kokokokoko »

jboy55 wrote: post #84
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of jobs I've worked at have required some flexibility in working off hours. Whether it was something that went down at off hours that needed to be addressed, or an unforeseen (and unforseeable) change in a business that required a last minute scramble, these things happen. True, there may be some jobs that are truly 9-5, and if that's the case, so be it. But frankly, as someone who is willing to put…

If 'Work Hours' require someone to be oncall 24/7, you can ask that as part of your interview, but you can't infer that from other factors. Yes: "Our job requires you to be on-call 24/7, one week a month, can you commit to that?". No: "You said you didn't have time for the take home test because you have a family. The family will get in the way of 24/7 support" Also yes: "you will be traveling 5 days a week for your…

As someone who has been in this industry for a long time and seen a lot, this still baffles me.

Who agrees to being on call 24/7 for a week? Especially when you are getting paid a typical professional salary? It seems absurd. I've always been active after hours and willing to jump in when things happen.

But this idea that you are essentially working (since you need to always be somewhere you can start working within minutes) for a week out of a month every month of your life for a salary job with no equity or long term payoff on the other end, has to be the most bizarre choice a person could make.

Maybe there is something to that I don't understand? I guess if you don't have any other interests or people in your life. But that just seems really sad.

Possibly someone who does this could help me to understand this a little better?

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