A number of programmers have taken it Twitter to bring it to
everyone's, but particularly recruiter's, attention about the grueling
interview process in their field that relies heavily on technical
questions.
David Heinemeier Hansson, a well-known programmer and the creator of
the popular Ruby on Rails coding framework, started it when he
tweeted, "Hello, my name is David. I would fail to write bubble sort
on a whiteboard. I look code up on the internet all the time. I don't
do riddles." Another coder added, "Hello, my name is Tim. I'm a lead
at Google with over 30 years coding experience and I need to look up
how to get length of a python string." Another coder chimed in, "Hello
my name is Mike, I'm a GDE and lead at NY Times, I don't know what np
complete means. Should I?"
A feature story on The Outline adds:
This interview style, widely used by major tech companies including
Google and Amazon, typically pits candidates against a whiteboard
without access to reference material -- a scenario working
programmers say is demoralizing and an unrealistic test of actual
ability. People spend weeks preparing for this process, afraid that
the interviewer will quiz them on the one obscure algorithm they
haven't studied. "
A cottage industry has emerged that reminds us uncomfortably of SAT
prep," Karla Monterroso, VP of programs for Code2040, an organization
for black and Latino techies, wrote in a critique of the whiteboard
interview. [...] This means companies tend to favor recent computer
science grads from top-tier schools who have had time to cram; in
other words, it doesn't help diversify the field with women, older
people, and people of color.
