[vp89]

Its counter intuitive but whiteboarding is actually more inclusive IMO. Anyone who has 35 bucks can lock themselves in a room for 3 months with a copy of CTCI and a pad of paper and come out with an 80+k salary. You cant do that in any other industry.

If we judge candidates purely on work experience that just favors the incumbents who have already broken into the industry and presumably already quite comfortable in life.

[entee]

That assumes the interview accurately measures something useful. The more I read about this area the more I think a 1-2h pre-interview practical coding assignment, then a 1 on 1 discussion during the interview is better. You then get to understand how they think, how they design solutions, and some sense of how they interact. In other words, how they'd do the job.

[vp89]

Good design instincts takes lots of hard earned real world experience to develop. I wouldnt expect the average 21 year old programmer to really know how to design stuff maybe they can provide me crammed textbook answers but that is as "irrelevant" as whiteboarding.

I think a good approach is to not emphasize the whiteboard as much for senior hires, so people with good work experience can mostly get in on their resume and design questions and people with lesser experience still have the opportunity to break into these top companies by grinding algo questions.

[mikulas_florek]

I once hired a senior programmer because of his perfect resume and it was one of the worst choices I made while hiring. He was probably a net loss for the company. What difference can be in CV of two people, who both have 15 years of experience in the industry?

[mahyarm]

Many interviews are not pure whiteboard algos. And many interview processes are different, each company is unique.

When I interviewed a couple of years ago, I saw various kinds of interviews at companies:

* 1-2hr on site coding exercise, with the internet, alone.

* 'Here is a 100loc piece of code, fix all the problems with it'.

* Chat with product / manager / team lunch. ('Are you an asshole' test / 'culture' interview / scenario testing)

* Design / outline an app that does X, with boxes and lines on a whiteboard.

* Solve this algorithmic problem on a white board / on your computer.

The reason why everyone freaks out about the algo interview it's the only interview type that most engineers have to prepare for. The other 4 usually you don't have to do much prep work at all.

[digler999]

> a 1-2h pre-interview practical coding assignment

then you'll only select for people who have nothing better to do with their time than to donate it to your fun programming escapade. Experienced devs will say it's not worth their time and wont apply.

[philbo]

> then you'll only select for people who have nothing better to do with their time

1-2 hours on a practical assignment vs 3 months cramming suggested by the parent comment. Which of those has nothing better to do with their time?

> Experienced devs will say it's not worth their time and wont apply.

Will they? I'm an experienced dev and think this approach sounds great.

[chillee]

The problem is that in reality, what can you code in 1-2 hours? Of the coding assignments I've seen, many have started to bleed into requiring 5 hours or more.

[TillE]

No, it's just moving those 1-2 hours to home instead of at the interview. If you can take time off for an hours-long interview, you have the time to complete that kind of task.

[digler999]

It's asymmetrical though. A reviewer can yea-or-nay my 1-hour assignment in a minute or two. If I'm desperate for work, sure I'll do it. But my position is in high enough demand that I can choose another position that doesn't require me to do homework. If they made some attempt to get to know me, talk to me, and then give me homework, I might bite. But I'm not going to do hours worth of work just for the chance to get a job.

[jghn]

We give these assignments but if we give you one you're already coming in for an interview. What I dislike are the companies who use it as a screen like you describe.

[Izmaki]

Why would you apply for a job that you don't want? And if you want it, why wouldn't you put at least some effort into getting it?

Effort does not only include writing a cover letter that will be appealing for the company you apply to instead of just forwarding HR your resume. It also includes small activities like these.

You sound more like a spoiled brat, pardon my French, than an artist looking for new opportunities to make a difference.

[rbg246]

No he sounds like a skilled artisan who is bringing his unique skill set to the table in an equal trade. He doesn't need to doff his hat and thank the kind Master for this opportunity.

[hackinthebochs]

You sound like someone who doesn't realize this isn't 2006 anymore and people stopped pretending to change the world with every new job.

[digler999]

> an artist looking for new opportunities to make a difference.

The only "difference" I want to make is in my checking account. I want the deposits from my employer to "differ" by greater margins as time advances.

[frogperson]

Im good at my job. I solve problems that provide business value. It has nothing to do with art. If you ask me to work for 2 hours, I'm sending you an invoice.

[kafkaesq]

Anyone who has 35 bucks can lock themselves in a room for 3 months with a copy of CTCI and a pad of paper and come out with an 80+k salary.

If anything, this just tells us what a low bar to entry the CTCI drill is.

Say you had a pool of candidates of roughly comparable intelligence, educational background, and work experience. And then you gave them 3 months of all living expenses paid† to go an "improve themselves as software development professionals."

One of them comes back and says "I cranked out an MVP (relying in part on a language I only barely knew to that point) that's actually being used by people, and getting good reviews. Here, check out he repo."

Another says, "I thought it was about time I got a handle on this machine learning stuff. Here's a project I did, based on a generalization of some ideas in such-and-such paper. Wish I had more time to spend on it, but looks like my error rate's not too bad."

And another says "It took literally 6-8 hours of devoted practice, every day. But I finally got some serious traction on Japanese. I honestly thought I'd never be able to do that."

And then there's the guy who says "Oh, I looked myself in my apartment and did every exercise in CTCI. Because, you know, I heard that's what you're supposed to do. Damn, my back is sore. I think I need a better chair or something."

Who would you rather talk to first?

† Which costs a lot more than 35 bucks, BTW.

[kafkaesq]

EDIT: 'looked' -> 'locked'

[mdturnerphys]

I get your point, but I'll also point out that costs a lot more than $35 to lock yourself in a room for 3 months. Many people don't have guaranteed room and board for that long.

[ThrowawayR2]

>Many people don't have guaranteed room and board for that long.

If a person has been in the industry for more than than three years and doesn't have 3 months cash reserve saved up[1], they are severely mismanaging their finances. _Particularly_ since we're seeing increasing warnings from the financial sector that we're in a bubble already.

[1] barring some unexpected catastrophic expense

[wolfgang42]

Whether or not they have it saved, they still have to spend it.

[drewrv]

Having the ability to lock yourself in a room and study for three months is an enormous privilege, particularly if the thing you're studying is only marginally useful.

[branchless]

This is the amazing thing about IT. Also once you are in the computer doesn't care what your background is, what your colour is etc. It will refuse to compile the bad code of an ivy league grad.