"its not about the problem" but if you cant correctly code one of these 200 algorithms on a whiteboard in sub 15 minutes while under extreme stress youre not getting an offer either.
You get 45 minutes, sometimes more if the interviewers can see that you’re close.
These days Google offers the option of a chromebook instead of a whiteboard.
This definitely isn't advertised, I interviewed there on Friday for frontend and was presented with an entire wall to write on.
Would have preferred the Chromebook, could have done a final test run of the code, written out params and comments, tests, etc.
thanks for explaining how coding interviews work to me thou, really had no idea based on the 200 i've administered in recent years or dozens taken in my career.
i just think its annoying because lots of companies cargo cult google and what thet do is a largely tangential skill set from the rigors of day to day programming work and knowledge. its a ritual from when they were hiring small numbers of graduate students with no real programming experience to measure them on. also the whiteboard is a relic of a time before there were laptops with hotswap 2nd screens.
It's going away now but it kinda was not too long ago.