from Hacker News

Whiteboard interviews are a test of obedience, not intelligence

by vitaminCPP on 6/3/24, 9:34 PM with 167 comments

• by TN1ck on 6/3/24, 10:14 PM

  While (live) code challenges have a lot of problems, I don't see it as a possibility to get entirely rid of them. As someone who hires engineers, I do want to verify that people can actually code. While most people who are "merely talk" can be already filtered without a code challenge, there are plenty who make a good impression, but lack fundamentals in coding or do not have the skill level I'm hiring for.

  Live codings especially are a very good insight in how someone thinks and approaches a problem, never thought about obedience in any aspect.

  If someone has contributed to an open source project or has some themselves, talking about those instead is enough for me as well, but that's even more to ask for imo, as not everyone has the time to create a project that is worth talking about and demonstrates their skill.

• by jasonpeacock on 6/3/24, 10:01 PM

  The author falls into the trap of every "technical interviews such, just talk to them about their experience!" argument - it's easy to sound like you know what you're talking about but not be able to actually write code.

  I've had so many interviews that started strong, great conversation, amazing resume, and then they couldn't write a basic function to implement a straightforward algorithm.

  Like, they literally could not write a nested for-loop that worked (in a language of their choice!).

  IMO, the solution is apprenticeships/probationary offers. "Try before you buy" goes both ways - it gives the candidate and opportunity to try out the company (how many companies like about their culture, tools, quality, and work/life balance?!).

  Alas, it requires the industry to shift to support that model, it's very difficult for companies and candidates to support that model on their own without most other companies doing the same.

• by tedunangst on 6/3/24, 10:02 PM

  This will be shocking, but honestly, the point of asking someone to code up fizzbuzz on the whiteboard is not sifting for obedient slaves. Hand to god, chop down the cherry tree, no lie.

• by deathanatos on 6/3/24, 11:28 PM

  Motte and bailey, and the comments here show it. Half of people arguing "reasonable whiteboard tests rule out candidates who cannot code" and the other half arguing "but leet code!" which is a different goal-post.

  But this stems from the article's thesis itself being unclear: both positions are superimposed in TFA, so it's no wonder half the readers came away with one goal post, and half the other.

  Motte: Leet-code interviews requiring memorization of problems unlikely to ever be actually encountered during one's career are bad.

  Bailey: "[All] Whiteboard interviews are a test of obedience, not intelligence" and the entire "How (Most) Interviews Should Be Conducted" which implicitly rules out any whiteboard/coding questions by not including it.

  To the author, if they're here: which position are you actually arguing?

  I agree with the motte, as one might guess. If it's truly is the bailey, why should a Senior SWE not be able to implement min()? (… like, realistically, in their sleep?) Perhaps I'm returning false negative in 1/10,000 people, but I'll take that for the true negatives of "cannot, apparently, implement min()". "min()" has pass rates of like 50% in my interviews.

  The problem with the suggested interview style is that it does not yield reliable information. People bullshit, people lie. People exaggerate their contributions to something. Worse, the people who you probably do want to hire are going to be modest and honest as to their role.

  I'll also add that "whiteboard coding" should ideally not be literal. I really want the candidate to have a good IDE / dev env to work in. I am often hamstrung by what HR/the corp. is willing to provide; if all I've got is a whiteboard, I'm sorry. Everyone being remote should have made this easier, but I still encounter many candidates who struggle to bring an IDE of their choosing in a language they're most comfortable with, to the VC, with advanced notice. (And this is generally a nudge towards "no hire"…)

• by schneems on 6/3/24, 10:06 PM

  A whiteboard test asks the question: do I have anxiety about whiteboard tests.

  The answer is “yes”.

• by fivereason on 6/3/24, 10:15 PM

  one advantage to the whiteboard interview is that it allows a person to get the job regardless of their past experience, which can be determined by what they were "allowed" to do at previous companies. in some cases, people are pigeonholed into various genre of engineering based on assumptions about them (e.g., assign african americans or women certain types of work even though that isn't what they prefer). if you can only speak to what you've been allowed to do compared with what you can prove you've learned to do (via the interview), you could be at a disadvantage.

  what if we could pick the type of interview we wanted? whiteboard coding challenge or work experience based?

• by DFHippie on 6/3/24, 10:34 PM

  One thing a whiteboard interview does is confirm that you resemble the person described in your application. This is ever more important as many people have an LLM write their application for them.

  Here's a prediction: as it becomes ever easier to fake details remotely, there will be an ever greater emphasis placed on in-person interviews in the hiring process, with the result being that even remote work is less remote: you have to being the physical presence of an interviewer at some point. If the job is in Kalamazoo, most of the people making the final cut will be near Kalamazoo.

• by throwawa14223 on 6/3/24, 10:17 PM

  I've worked at companies that required very heavy whiteboard interviews and companies that banned them. The caliber of engineers at the whiteboard heavy companies was higher at each. At this point I see them as a needed filter.

• by the_real_cher on 6/3/24, 10:05 PM

  Actual coding has always been like 20% of my job.

  The rest is spent co-ordinating, planning, troubleshooting, etc.

  If youre going to test me on coding then actually let me code. lol

• by optimalsolver on 6/3/24, 10:00 PM

  Can't it be both?

  In the same way a college degree tests your willingness to jump through hoops authority figures set for you, but it also demonstrates a basic level of mental competence.

• by janalsncm on 6/3/24, 10:58 PM

  A while ago I interviewed at Scale AI. After reading about them online I was fairly certain I didn’t want to work there, but I decided to do the interview as practice anyways.

  The interview had nothing to do with the role I would be doing, and worse yet, the interviewer seemed pretty tired and uninterested. So when I was rejected I wasn’t too upset.

• by tennisflyi on 6/3/24, 10:09 PM

  Yes and interviews are about who interviews the best. Not the best fit or smartest

• by cjoelbrowning on 6/4/24, 3:35 AM

  I think coding tests can be done in a way that’s useful, but on the other hand I’ve never been fooled by a candidate who was an “impostor” during a non-technical screening. Everyone I’ve judged to be a competent engineer after 30 min of semi-structured technical discussion has indeed been a competent engineer.

• by devit on 6/3/24, 10:57 PM

  They are a test for people who are very strongly identified with being highly intelligent/skilled where their definition of "intelligence/skill" includes solving programming and computer science problems (and have the capability to achieve a good level).

  If that's your identity, then not being able to solve hard Leetcode problems (which, to my knowledge, are not even actually hard, since they seem to be easier than the problems in actual top competitions like the IOI, ICPC, etc.) is completely unacceptable and thus you will study and practice relentlessly until you manage (if you can); conversely, if that's not your identity, it's probably going to be hard to find the motivation to do so.

• by insaneisnotfree on 6/4/24, 4:02 PM

  All good until the part of you need them working, not interviewing. That’s not true at all. If someone has to enter a team, should be screened by the team lead

• by zerr on 6/3/24, 10:11 PM

  Same goes for [unpaid] take-homes and leetcode grind.

• by RecycledEle on 6/4/24, 5:24 PM

  I just assumed the interviewers were incompetent.

  Here is a list if things to NOT say when interviewing for a job:

  * I can not talk to you anymore. I need to talk to someone who is competent.

  * Are you in drugs?

  * Is there a technical person here that I can speak with?

  * I need a list of the drugs you have taken in the last 48 hours.

  * Are you serious?

  * Are you hallucinating? Nobody said that. I think you need help.

  * No. This job is not worth being humiliated by someone who is so innumerate that they have to put things back at the grocery store checkout.

• by newprint on 6/3/24, 11:06 PM

  here we go, we came full circle. now the code tests are oppression tool.

• by micromacrofoot on 6/3/24, 10:03 PM

  > We don't need free thinkers or leaders, we need obedient slaves, individuals who'll unquestioningly follow orders and work overtime. Their expertise? Irrelevant. We'll train them, we can afford it, our customers will pay for that.

  I mean, yes that's actually what most large companies want. "Free thinkers" can often be outright terrible employees because they're just not interested in building whatever boring thing a company needs. They put a small number of these people in a box and make the majority of the company build what seem like the most profitable ideas to come out of the box.

• by j7ake on 6/3/24, 10:01 PM

  Yeah clearly. Most companies only want engineers to implement the companies ideas, but don’t actually care about high level ideas from those engineers.

  Imagine you are interviewing senior levels of engineer, like Guido van Rossum: in an ideal interview, you don’t want to hear him regurgitate textbook problems taken from an exam book.

  You want to hear about his vision of where he sees the field in 15 years.

  But this is not what companies want.

• by ashgw on 6/5/24, 7:29 PM

  Hi, I wrote the article. I see a lot of opinions here and I want to thank everyone for taking time out of their day to read it.

  I'm not the OP though; I was informed that the article was shared here, so let me explain some things that I think weren't clear.

  Nope. I've never applied to FAANG and never will. And yes, I do know how to revert a binary tree and run zigzag level order traversal from memory using bare C without seg faults, not using JS/Python. But I don't remember other things, and if I have to invest time to train my brain, I better get a good ROI.

  I did not call everyone slaves, and I'm not calling anyone a slave, including people working at FAANG. I'm just saying that from the perspective of big corporations, that's how they see us—not just tech corporations, but all corporations.

  FAANG companies need to conduct whiteboard interviews because, as I mentioned in the Google section, they have no choice. You're mostly going to be using some tech you've never used before, so they just want to see how you solve problems. I still don't approve of this as it's lacking; it's still a pattern recognition game. I can solve the hardest questions without training, but it would take me time. Expecting me to solve a new riddle my brain hasn't seen before in 45 minutes is just a numbers game. It's pattern recognition, not problem-solving, which needs a more creative aspect.

  It's like knowing how to play a song on a piano by memorizing the keys versus composing your own music. Memorizing a song is one thing, but creating your own requires deeper understanding and creativity. Companies need both types of skills, but relying too heavily on memorization leads to a lack of true innovation.

  Also, asking veterans how to use a specific function/class/method in library X or framework Y is not it, chief. I often forget most of my own libraries' APIs, let alone other people's. You think I really remember what that method was called? Unless I worked with it recently (within ~6 months), I need a refresher.

  However, my problem is with cheap startups and "enterprises" that still use jQuery and Java -1, acting as if they're Google. You're not. You don't make the software they do, you don't pay as much, and working with you sucks.

  If you're running a startup and you ask me for take-home assignments and expect me to spend two months relearning patterns I’ve forgotten, you need to pay me as much as FAANG does, or you need to humble yourself and see reality for what it is. Your software sucks, your management sucks, y'all suck. You're not that guy, pal. You're not that guy. If I'm getting a good ROI, why wouldn't I brush up on basic algo manipulation techniques? I'll gladly do it—I'll consider it an investment. If I'm going to be a good slave from your point of view can I at least make good money off it?

• by thedynamicduo on 6/3/24, 10:57 PM

  It's hard to read this as anything other than a bitter candidate who got rejected after a series of FAANG interviews. There are some legitimate criticisms sprinkled in, but to characterize everyone who made it through as slaves who are more obedient than you seems like a coping mechanism.