[IQunder130]

Kernel development would be a stupid thing to put in your requirements list as it would generate too many false negatives, but it should definitely be a nice bonus for any candidate since it demonstrates a fairly high basic level of competence across the board.

Nobody's complaining about whiteboard coding challenges because people who ace them suck at writing code. It's because a far greater number of perfectly competent programmers will fail any given challenge of that type above trivial complexity.

[monsieurbanana]

> because people who ace them suck at writing code

Is there such a high correlation? I used to do a lot of hackerrank-style problems for fun, a few years ago. If I had to evaluate my ability to write code back then: pretty crappy.

I was good at writing functions, I was bad at writing programs.

[IQunder130]

You are probably more easily taught how to write good programs because

a) your understanding of the basics is solid;

b) let's face it, these brain teasers are often proxies for intelligence testing.

If they have a glut of candidates for every position, whiteboarding data structures and algorithms makes for a decent filter.

[TeMPOraL]

I think their point is, there's just so many bad candidates that even among those that pass whiteboard coding challenges, most can't code - but it increases the ratio of good to bad coders in the pool, so in lieu of a better option[0], it's still used.

--

[0] - There are plenty of better options, but they tend to not scale - so they cost more, and companies avoid them.

[IQunder130]

No, that's not my point and it's extreme arrogance on your part to assume that coding is some sort of arcane art only accessible to a select few. Programming is a skill like any other, you develop it with experience. DS&A screening simply selects for people with a decent understanding of the fundamentals, even though it has a very high false negative rate.