Hacker News Reader

Comment by timbofoo | Hacker News Reader

I see the whiteboard coding test as an attitude-test. If you have too much attitude to sit down and write some code for an hour, then you aren't someone I want in my company. It shouldn't be hard if you're skilled. Sorry to be that way, but that's the way I (and we) see it.

View on HN

Do employees at your company write all their code on whiteboards, without access to documentation, the internet and etc. And then when they have perfected the code they transfer it to a computer? If not, then you are not really interviewing for the right skills are you?

you've just failed my attitude test because you started talking about attitude :) The reason for that is that chalking something up to attitude as a first or major explanation usually is just mental cheating on your part - in the particular case of whiteboarding issues there may be a lot of reasons for different people other than attitude, i'd venture to guess that attitude is never a reason (until of course it is a director/VP candidate and one of my friends suggests the candidate to write a sort, any sort ... even here i think the first was [lack of] such ability and the attitude was only masking it :)

So, if they aren't willing to go through whatever random whiteboard bullshit you decide is due, then they can't join your company? Sounds like you're doing them a favor, not the other way around...

Probably one of the most insensitive posts I've ever seen written on here. There are many people who have crippling anxiety and social phobias, and your post chalks that up to them having an "attitude".

Not to be harsh or anything, but this kind of proves the point. Crippling anxiety and social phobia are not things I would want in an employee, all else equal, because they will need to be able to communicate in meetings and present findings/work to different teams / executives.

Reply: baseline social comfort is not a generic personality type.

Isn't that your job as a manager, though? To balance the various personality types on your team?

Seems like you just want one generic personality type on your team to make your life easier.

That's not how anxiety works. You are crippled while interacting with strangers, not with teammates you've spent 8 hours per day warming up to.

You should really give anxiety sufferers a shot. There are some real gems there which you are dismissing out of hand.

Yes, you should give them a shot, if they are exceptionally talented. That's why I said all else equal. But they will need to interact with people from other teams they've never seen before. They will need to interact with executives they've never seen before. They may need to interact with new hires, they may even need to interact with outside contractors.

Crippling anxiety and social phobia are not things I would want in an employee, all else equal,

It's not that their anxiety is crippling; it's that for various reasons, the hiring process is typically conducted in a way that is at best often careless and inconsiderate to the candidate -- and quite often needlessly stressful and confrontational.

In other words, the people who sometimes get tripped by such processes aren't demonstrating "crippling anxiety"; they're demonstrating perfectly normal, human traits.

That cuts both ways, hombre. If you're not willing to think about the serious problems with conducting interviews that way, I don't wanna work with you either.

Plus you literally just came out and admitted that it's not actually about measuring technical skill, it's some run-you-through-the-gauntlet "attitude" bullshit. Gimme a break.

This kind of proves his point. All else equal, someone who communicates like this ("hombre", "gimme a break", "bullshit") on the Internet is not someone I want to be working with.

What is the point again? If benign turns of phrase spoken on an internet forum factors into a company's hiring practices in any capacity, I'd say it's pretty much assured that it's a terrible place to work.

It's a very rude tone of voice. It's not a collegiate tone.

If you have too much attitude to sit down and write some code for an hour, then you aren't someone I want in my company.

Whiteboard sessions are typically done standing (an unusual posture for most people), in a non-interactive environment and importantly, in front of other people (which is quite different from coding, alone, in a development environment, in the sitting or standing posture of one's choice). Who also expect you to explain to them what you're thinking as you're coding, interrupt you with questions or hints, etc. An entirely different workflow from just sitting down and writing code.

Even so -- traditional whiteboard sessions might sort of be OK, if they kept it to a single hour. The thing is, these days, the sessions (whether using a whiteboard per se, or some tool like hackerrank) can typically go on for multiple hours, like 4-6, being stared at by 5-10 people throughout. And are sometimes very poorly coordinated (either the problem isn't properly stated... or it seems no one bothered to check that you've already done the first 2-3 hours of "idiot testing", and make you do it all over again when you get referred to another team, etc).

And this sometimes on other pointless exercises (like a full hour of solving pure logic puzzles, being administered to you by a fresh graduate).

At some point it just gets to be unnecessarily exhausting and humiliating. And no, it's not a symptom of an "attitude problem" if one starts to feel less than enthusiastic about the way some companies conduct these sessions.

Call me old school but before starting out writing code I much prefer to find a quite place, take out a pen and paper and spend the hour sketching out a few design thoughts on paper.

That entire process many only produce one or two sheets of paper, with many more sheets ending up in the bin, but I find it is time well spent as it makes the coding step much easier.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com