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Comment by storborg | Hacker News Reader

I often hear people assert that engineering isn't done under pressure, so an interviewee's performance under pressure doesn't matter. I don't think that's necessarily true: lots of systems have to be designed for life-and-death situations, web sites often have major crises/bugs, every team faces last minute deadlines, etc.

I wouldn't want anyone on my team who fell apart under stress. Performance under pressure isn't the only factor, but it is a factor.

That said, if anyone has a zero-stress engineering job, please tell me.

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But this is a different kind of stress. Interviews are usually performed under "social" stress - people normally get nervous when meeting someone new, probably for evolutionary reasons. This "short term" stress is very different from the stress you get because of a deadline or a critical bug.

I've never really felt it was that different, but for the sake of discussion, how would you simulate the non-social variety of stress in a hiring situation?

You could request the candidate to retrieve an assignment from a password-protected website and require a solution within X hours after retrieval.

This does put on some pressure - there is a deadline, after all - but people who are shy but confident in their coding abilities may be less anxious. This would also solve the common "but I wouldn't code without an IDE/Google/Wikipedia" complaint.

Having experienced it myself, I can vouch that such an difference exist. When forced to write a complicated piece of code with a bunch of strange people breathing down my neck and watching every step I take, my productivity tends to slacken off when I hit a coders equivalent of writer’s block. It just doesn’t come out as naturally as it used to. In contrast, same task in a more familiar and comfortable setting looks like a piece of cake even if deadline is drawing close.

Coder's block is a good way to describe it.

I've had phone interviews where I've been asked to solve a logic puzzle with pen/paper while explaining my approach. Solving a problem you've never thought about while being put on the spot turns out to be incredibly difficult. These sorts of problems require deep concentration and quiet yet it tends to be awkward to have silence between strangers. The situation really inhibits serious problem solving.

Behavioral interviewing techniques are supposed to be designed to induce stress well above and beyond nervousness when meeting someone new. The stress you feel from a deadline or a critical bug is also social stress. The deadline/bug are not able to care whether they are dealt with. The humans who expect you to deal with them are the source of the stress, whether they are your boss, management from other departments, or if you're running the show, your customers.

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