[ericbarrett]

I've been on both ends of this exchange. I always gave candidates time to work through it without interruption when I was the interviewer. This didn't prevent the worst cases of nerves, of course, but hopefully I didn't make it unnecessarily worse.

Conversely, how they treat me as I go through the process is a great way to judge the engineering culture of the org. If the interviewer feels license to cut me off, jump in, correct me on syntax as I'm still writing, or just generally sprays frustration, it's a high-confidence signal that I'll get the same treatment as a new coworker, and I have ended interviews accordingly.