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Comment by jhall1468 | Hacker News Reader

It's a contrived situation that involves significantly more nerves than any real life situation will. I've known more than a few programmers that were perfectly capable of doing their work, but struggled through interviews because they got nervous during the coding phase.

The reality of the situation is that contrived problems in stressful situations are going to result in a lot of false negatives. That may be fine for you since you may be avoiding some false positives, but that doesn't mean your particular method is "the only way."

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But its not contrived -- its like your entire job. You're literally saying "I can't perform my primary job function when there is any pressure whatsoever". That MIGHT be acceptable if you're interviewing for an entry level job.

The only other reason I can think for being unwilling to do this is if you're incapable of working with other people - because whiteboarding out solutions with other devs is super common. Even "where do you think I should start, I'm a bit nervous and an idea to get me going would be great" is a perfectly acceptable question. The best interviews are a conversation -- if you turn it into a conversation where we're working together on the problem, it shows a lot about you still. If you take someone else's idea and run with it I think that's really cool, obviously if you need hand-holding it's suboptimal, but there is still a very positive possible outcome from saying "I have no idea where to start" if you're actually nervous.

The only ways I can think of to fail writing out code is people skills or being completely unable to program. It's not like I expect a perfect solution in the 30-60 minutes we have, analysis paralysis is just as bad as no-knock raiding the problem. There is some type of middle ground that involves a good solution that had to be done quickly -- maybe you even mention some other avenues to explore.

What if you ever have to represent my department in any capacity and someone asks you what your ideas for a problem and you just say "no, I don't do that" -- that doesn't really represent me well. I would be very surprised if being uppity about a question being "below you" ever works, you might as well just walk out the door if you're going to refuse to answer a question on "philosophical principle".

The question is just a jumping off point -- its up to you to turn it into a conversation that shows me how great of a programmer you are. If your answer is telling me how dumb my interview is, then that doesn't show me how great a programmer you are at all -- it shows me you have an attitude problem.

For people early in their career, a job interview can be one of the most stressful experiences in their entire life. I still remember every interview I've had. Writing code on a whiteboard with "everyone's eyes on you" can be extremely stressful for some people. I know brilliant coders who get absolutely paralyzed at the thought of having to present to an audience. (which is what whiteboarding during a job interview is, the social dynamics are entirely different when you're working with a co-worker on a problem)

If 99% of a coders job will be sitting at their desk cranking out code, why put some much emphasis in the hiring process on how they perform in extremely high stress social situations? The skills that make someone a great interviewee do not necessarily line up to being a great coder. If someone wants to up open their favorite IDE or VIM and show you how they code, why not let them? Personally, having dysgraphia, I would offer to open a text editor to write psuedocode rather than use a writing utensil.

Of course, every hiring situation is unique. If your developers are regularly required to present to clients, investors, or inside management stakeholders, then whiteboarding could be a valid hiring test.

> contrived problems in stressful situations are going to result in a lot of false negatives

I don't understand the concern with a "contrived" problem. You think it is better with a random spontaneous problem the interviewer thinks up on the spot?

Interviews are stressful for most people; good interviewers will take that into consideration.

If someone can't interact with colleagues to solve problems, and can only work when alone with the computer, it greatly limits the ability to work as part of a team.

Collaborative white board discussions are a pretty common part of many software development teams.

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