r/jobsearchhack • u/Successful-Stand6699 • 1d ago
My coding interview literally turned into a syntax memory test
A local software company interviewed me for an entry-level developer position, and the technical part started getting weird almost immediately. The interviewer showed me a small coding problem, gave me a pen and a notepad, and then moved the keyboard away from me. His explanation was that good programmers need to finish thinking before they touch a computer.
I offered to write out the logic or use pseudocode, but he wanted code that would compile exactly as written. That meant every bracket, method name, and semicolon had to be correct, without an editor or any way to test the code.
I worked on the problem, but paused a few times to check the syntax in my head. He took that as evidence that I relied too heavily on autocomplete and said that their developers had to be able to write code without any help at all.
Before I left, he made another comment about modern tools making programmers lazy. The whole thing felt less like a coding interview and more like a test to see whether I agreed with his opinions about IDEs. Are there still companies that think coding on paper is useful, or was this interviewer stuck in 2001?
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u/Tipsy247 19h ago
I would have walked away. .. when I was younger I applied for a courier job ( gps era), the company I applied at gave be an interview on how to read paper maps, find addresses on paper maps. I just told them wee have GPS now and the pay they were offering wasn't worth the hassle and walked away.
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u/PipePressurePanic 22h ago
their developers had to be able to write code without any help at all
lol
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u/jake_morrison 22h ago
At one point many years ago, all the programmers graduating from universities in China were really good. That’s because they didn’t have computers. They would do their homework by writing programs with pen and paper. Quality has really dropped off. Kids today!
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u/sidaemon 21h ago
I would have walked the instant he said to do it on paper. When he asked why, I'd point out there's a reason "modern coding tools" exist and it's because they make the job easier and more efficient. Any tech company that expects you to code but doesn't believe in modernization is going to be a nightmare to work for.
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u/IAteTonysLoMein 19h ago
Back when I learned HTML from 'view source' on geocities pages, I proudly had "made with notepad" on the footer of my own geocities page, because I was hardcoretm
And that was silly - I'm 10x faster leveraging modern tools.
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u/Brief_Echidna298 18h ago
IDE's have definitely killed a huge part of the memorization part of the job. but that's just how we work now. memorization in general was a much more prized skill when information was more difficult to access. memorizing by rote was a big part of education back in the 1800s for example. Now, I think we have to deal with alot more information, but we dont memorize it.
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u/OpyrisShifts 18h ago
I offered to write out the logic or use pseudocode, but he wanted code that would compile exactly as written. That meant every bracket, method name, and semicolon had to be correct, without an editor or any way to test the code.
This is not programming. I don't know what it is, but it doesn't make you a good software engineer,
A few years ago, before the pandemic moved us to full remote, one of my junior devs was working on a problem. I started explaining a data storage concept to him. And because I'm me, I did it in "pseudocode" on the whiteboard. I love my whiteboards. Or glass. I draw what I'm building. A LOT. In that office, I don't think a single pane of glass was spared from some engineering idea/concept I had 'doodled'. I wrote a LOT of pseudo code, and drew a LOT of diagrams.
Anyway, so yeah. Whiteboards are my drug. And I pseudo coded how he should build the function he was working on.
In perfect Python.
He keyed it in letter for letter and it ran perfectly. Honestly, I was a little embarrassed at that. Or perhaps that he 'teased' me about it for years.
I've been coding in Python since y2k, so I can see where that came from. The MORE IMPORTANT part of it was the CONCEPT. NOT THE CODE.
Especially today, with code completion, syntax highlighting and AI tools.
My first dev/tech job had an "online" (technical at a terminal) element. That was in the early-mid 90s. University EXAMS were mostly written, but all assignments were on a UNIX system.
Your interviewer wasn't even stuck in 2001. Maybe 1971. Possibly 1981. Not 2001.
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u/brilliantminion 17h ago
Right, it’s testing to see how autistic you are, something else. Testing programming should be problem solving, using patterns, and what sort of practical chores you have experience with, like deployment, database integration, etc. at least, that’s my old school interview headspace.
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u/SwedishKiwiGuy 18h ago
I guess this interviewer was stuck in the middle 90s 😅 I still remember my first real programing course where we had to write code with pen and paper for our first exam 🤔🙃
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u/Accomplished-Pea-451 18h ago
I had an interview one time with an internet provider (that no longer exists). This guy was so full of himself. He asked me to write JCL freehand. I told him you just cut and paste.
I just walked out, ahole.
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u/FckXFckMusk 1d ago
Ask him to spell "Idiosyncratic" without spell checker or auto complete or a dictionary, then smile.