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Comment by sushisource | Hacker News Reader

IMO, software interviewing is pretty heavily broken. I struggled with this and I decided (rightly or wrongly) that the problem wasn't me, it really was the process.

Whiteboard coding is nonsense for any other purpose than weeding out the truly incompetent.

Past that point, it's a crapshoot. I think homework / portfolio are the most reasonable evaluative tools, but there are some legitimate downsides there around the bias it can introduce into your process, and the potential candidates who may be turned off by it.

Things worked out for me, but not before I had some serious self doubt.

So, stick too it. You (probably, I don't actually know) are good at your job - don't let the nonsense process convince you otherwise. Look for companies that share your viewpoints.

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> Whiteboard coding is nonsense

Absolutely. Asking a person to produce correct code with just a whiteboard/pen/notepad is like asking a surgeon to do with just a kitchen knife. An intelligent code-completing&checking IDE, a debugger and the Internet should be considered parts of a developer's body nowadays, restricting usage of these makes just as much sense as restricting usage of glasses for reading or requiring people to get to the office without using personal/public transport vehicles.

The point of whiteboard interviews are supposedly to understand a person's thought process when they're solving a problem. They're supposed to explain step by step so the interviewer can pick their brain a little.

If an interviewer scolds you for writing whiteboard code that will cause a compiler syntax error, red flag, time to bail out. This is now how they are supposed to be done.

Properly done I might go against the grain saying I prefer whiteboarding tests over take-home tests. With whiteboarding, both parties are at least with equal time investment and a higher level of transparency. And once the interview is done, it is done. No thinking about how to schedule your next few days around finishing unpaid work for a company that you may have a chance with.

I’m almost convinced at this point that tech interviews are essentially random dice throws and the results have very little if anything to do with whether the candidate is qualified. Failing an interview stings the ego, but it should not—it says nothing about your qualifications.

Agreed, the better I get at software engineering (good top level design, keeping things simple, not over-engineering, not under-engineering, hopefully writing clean maintainable code), the less people seem interested in any of that. Just whether I have used hip new tech x.

To be honest I am surprised of the tolerance levels between quality of work and quality of the interviewing.

In some engineering fields, I'd expect that such inconsistency in hiring practices would result in hiring someone that causes a huge accident.

Dark version: software interviewing would not be this broken if most bugs or mistakes would directly result in a person's serious injury or death.

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