[Areading314]

I don't see the problem with whiteboard as long as its emphasized that you are looking for an algorithmic solution, not a perfectly running code snippet in a specific language. Whiteboard is great for sketching out ideas and solving problems collaboratively, which is a good indicator of team fit.

[grecy]

Exactly right. I think a lot of people stress that a whiteboard exercise is not a great way to ascertain coding skill.... and they're right. The part they're missing is the whiteboard exercise isn't intended to only test coding skill.

It's about how well you ask questions, how well you listen to instructions, how well you work with others and interpret the specs and information you're given. Then it's about how well you adapt to changing or incomplete requirements, and how well you can explain yourself and your thought process.

Like so many tests in life it's not about the "answer", it's about the process you used to get there.

[pmiller2]

In practice, facing down some 25 year old who’s been at the company for all of 9 months, it is all about “the answer.” In some cases, it’s about 3 answers. Often, it’s actually about their answer — you must do it their way, otherwise you are wrong.

This is not the case 100% of the time, but it is often enough that if you’re interviewing in SF, particularly at startups, you will see it at least every few interviews. It’s ridiculous.

[grecy]

Doesn't sound like a place anyone would want to work at anyway.

That's the great thing about an on-site interview, the evaluation goes both way.

[Aeolun]

The thing is, I can do all of those things very well when I’m not standing in front of a whiteboard.

When someone asks me to do then on a whiteboard in an interview setting they might as well dismiss me immediately.

[Ididntdothis]

When I interview I usually offer a whiteboard or paper and pen. Or they can talk through the problem. I just want to see that somebody is capable of understanding a problem and has a way to work towards a solution. Maybe I should offer a text editor too in the future.

[paranoidrobot]

> Whiteboard is great for sketching out ideas and solving problems collaboratively, which is a good indicator of team fit.

Agreed.

But asking an algorithmic problem is usually not what you're going to solve on the whiteboard for the vast majority of jobs.

In most jobs, it's usually some variant of:

- We have some new feature, what's a good way to design it - We're trying to add this feature to this existing thing, what's the lowest impact way of modifying the existing code. - We've got an existing feature that has some problem (bug, complexity, performance), Is there a way to solve that, and perhaps the same entire class of problems across the application by implementing a known design pattern.

There's not a huge amount of novel thinking other than how to specifically glue existing libraries, design patterns and so forth, together with business specific logic.

Most whiteboard coding questions tend to be of the "Design an algorithm to solve an anagram" or "Implement a sort function" which don't relate to the job at all, and tell you nothing about the candidate's ability to do any of the things they're going to do day to day.

[Areading314]

I guess you can run an interview poorly whether its on a whiteboard or anywhere else. If you are looking for an implementer-type role that isn't going to be doing much problem-solving, it could be that an interview working with real code makes more sense. A good process should involve a mix of these situations to get the full picture.

[kumarvvr]

Yup.

In a normal environment, when given a tough problem to solve, a whiteboard is like a scratch pad for ideas.

Out of that amalgamation of insights, comes the final solution.

When given a whiteboard, the interviewer ought to assess the thought process the interviewee is going through. Even if the outcome is wrong, if the thought process in acceptable, the solution will present itself eventually.

As an interviewer, I would also ask to list out the many ways one can solve a problem.

To me this is utmost important because in the real world, choosing one of the many ways to solve a problem is an important skill. The theoretically correct solution is not always the practical / implementable / cost-effective solution.

[Areading314]

Add to that the need for being able to explain that solution, which is something that the automated "pass the test" type screens can't assess.

[inertiatic]

I don't mind explaining algorithms on a whiteboard.

I do mind having to recall arbitrary algorithms on the spot.

Even then, you can avoid asking trickier algorithms as an interviewer.

But as soon as you have to write in an actual language it just becomes too painful.

Which is what most interviewers expect.

[PopeDotNinja]

Here's the problem with whiteboard interviewing. You can't see how I think. It's just not possible. I'm trapped in a box with a strange person who is staring at me & asking me really invasive questions. If you wanna know whether or not I know about optimistic locking, just ask me "do to know about optimistic locking well?". If I do, ask me an optimistic locking question of modest difficulty. If I don't, don't spend an hour trying to get me to move in that direction and see if I figure it out. I'm just gonna think you're trying to show off how smart and unprepared you were.

[evilolive]

I take drugs to do interviews. Modafinil. It gets me a little bit jittery and all over the place. But programmers tend to like that nervous energy

There is just no way for me to stay on point for all of four or five hours of successive grilling. It's a lot more exhausting than thinking about anything on my own

[hinkley]

Because there’s a lot of different ways to break down a problem, and some of the best ones do not work well on a physical surface, where the cost of rearranging things is often higher than writing it over.