Ask HN: Do you like code pairing interviews? I hate them | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you like code pairing interviews? I hate them

7 pointspenguinlinux20 comments

I dislike code pairing interviews. Specially ones where you haven't even talked to the team, don't know anything about the people they just give you a laptop connected to a tv so that they can sit infront of you and watch you code. Maybe I am the only one but I can't perform when someone is watching me or analyzing what I am doing. I would prefer if they gave me a set of tasks. A github repo where I commit code and then I submit the code and we can discuss what I did and my reasoning. But when I am being watched I forget everything. It sucked :(

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What made it frustrating is that I am the type of person who likes to have my dev environment setup for coding, I also work in linux and not on a mac. I am also a quiet type of guy who codes best when I am sitting on my own. I do work with my team very well but I feel weird when people are watching over my shoulder. The funny thing is that I went to a second interview at a company that is doing interesting things with biometrics and large scale problems and their approach was to ask me lots of interesting questions about how i handled scaling, how to debug performance, optimzing queries, log analysis. I am a senior engineer with years of experience and these guys were very smart, at the end of the interview their HR person came and said the team loved me and would like to extend an offer. My jaw dropped. I came from a really bad interview to a place where they are doing more advanced stuff and I got the job. I thank them so much because I felt they gave me a fair chance to get to know me. :)

Would it be easier if you had half an hour to chat with the person before you jumped into writing code?

A lot of companies prefer pair programming so they can talk through problems with a candidate, both to get a feel for how they approach their work, and to make sure they aren't blocked on anything, given the limited amount of time. Was your interviewer talking with you while you paired?

What you are describing is a pretty poor pairing interview process. I did a bunch of really frustrating whiteboard type interviews and sudo pairing interviews like you describe before interviewing for my current position [1].

The screen is a one hour onsite pairing session followed by a final round that is a day of pairing using a proper workstation: One computer, two monitors and two sets of mice/keyboards. You pair with one person in the morning and another in the afternoon. It's very relaxed (you take turns "driving") and it gives you and the interviewers a lot more information about each other and your potential place of work. It also gives you enough time to adjust to the process if you are nervous. I don't think I'd do it any other way going forward.

[1] http://pivotal.io/careers

I would love to work for an outfit like Pivotal. Unfortunately I live in Maine and I know they don't do remote. :( I'm feeling seriously burnt out at my current position as the culture seems to be predominantly "throw something against the wall." There seems to be little thought towards maintainability, testing, etc. so feels like I'm pushing a rock up the hill continually trying to provide suggestions in PRs, etc.

If anyone knows of any well run consulting outfits that work with remote workers, practice pairing, TDD, and just all around "giving a shit" I'd welcome pointers.

Thanks!

I'll second that. I find it really odd more consulting companies aren't remote given their clients almost always are anyway.

Pivotal does pair-programming, which demands inflexible hours and intensive/stressful workload. Working remote is impossible as you cannot pair with another colleague.

Sure you can. Maybe not quite so efficiently, but its far from impossible

hv u done pair-programming before?

After searching for developers this year, I can say that pair programming during an interview is hard on the interviewee and could also be frustrating for the interviewer.

That said, our best hire was the one person who rose to the occasion and solved the problem we were asking. For that reason, I would do it again.

As an Interviewer I had a similar experience a while ago, there was a large language barrier with the candidate that was utterly obliterated once collaborating on code.

It would be cool if there was some kind of service to simulate these interviews, where you can code while being watched in real time and then receive good quality feedback. Does anything like this exist?

Something like this was shared here not too long ago.

https://www.pramp.com/

This looks great, thanks for sharing. Have you used it?

Nope

It's definitely a new skill on top of sitting alone and writing code. You can practice by doing some pair programming at your current workplace, with a friend, or at a coding meetup.

Edit: it may also mean the company you are interviewing at does pair programming. If you don't like pair programming, the interview is a good time to bring it up!

It's sort of like assigning a watcher to you while you using a bathroom.

Usually companies who engage in these practices have tendencies to micromanage their personnel down the road.

Red flag.

This sounds better than whiteboarding, but I think you're right. There's a big Heisenberg effect going on that's going to cause a lot of false positives

A more common complaint is about whiteboard coding. Having a laptop connected to a projector is exactly what many people say they would prefer.

This is simply a skill worth learning if you are not good at it already

I like them a lot. It tests a lot of things.

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