I absolutely hate the interviews that are just an algo challenge and the interviewer is waiting on me to finish to evaluate my solution. I flip out, start thinking that I'm taking too long and it just goes downhill from there.

On the other hand, the questions where I can talk through a problem are by far my favorite. Every problem in our field can be talked about for days. There's just so much to discuss:

- different approaches

- performance considerations

- perceived complexity

- and a hundred tangents I could go on to

In my opinion, it is the interviewer's job to get the candidate to talk. If the candidate can't speak a word out of their mouth, the interviewer failed. When I interview I just want to get you to talk...tell me stories, tell me tangents, tell me the stupid stuff, tell me the smart stuff. Tell me what kind of solutions you prefer and why?

Reading your comment made me think that maybe this isn't the best approach. Maybe some people want me to shut up and just do the hard math problem on their own.