
Ask HN: Is it feasible to ask not to talk while coding during interview? - muddyrivers
I cannot code and talk at the same time. Generally speaking, I cannot talk and write at the same time. I can write a few short sentences down, but I can&#x27;t write a clear and concise paragraph while talking, either in my native language or in English. My code will be a mess while I am talking. I don&#x27;t know why.<p>I regard myself as a good engineer. In each job I have, I become one of the de facto lead engineers. I have built high performant systems that support dozens of millions of unique users daily. But I failed miserably during tech interviews, especially when I was asked to code during phone calls.<p>So is it feasible that I ask not to have code interview via phone call? Is it feasible in onsite interview that I ask not to talk while I am thinking and coding. I am fully aware of the norm that I should talk aloud of my thought process. That is the reason I ask here.<p>P.S. It is also the reason I can&#x27;t do pair programming. If an engineering team requires pair programming, I will not apply since I know I am unqualified.
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partisan
I interviewed a candidate who just could not pseudocode and talk at the same
time. It was a little strange at first and I caught on to it and backed off to
let him work on the task. It wasn't held against him. Everyone is not cut from
the same cloth and it doesn't mean you can't contribute in amazing ways.

What I did hold against him was that he seemed to get frustrated and a bit
angry by it. In a collaborative environment, you are going to have to talk to
people and sometimes it interrupts you and your coding.

My advice is to develop some techniques for dealing with the issue. Namely,
gather your thoughts on your approach, pick the first task, explain it to the
interviewer so they know where you are going and will likely let you be for
some time, and then write the code. Then discuss it and repeat the steps until
you reach your solution. In this way, you are controlling the points at which
you are switching contexts from coding to talking to the interviewer.

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muddyrivers
Thank you for your advice, especially on controlling the points at which to
switch context.

I can listen, think, and talk. So I have no problem in meetings and
discussions on either technical or non-technical matters. I am pretty good to
go through code line by line with colleagues to trace down bugs. Only when it
comes to the point to write down real code of a dozen lines or more that I
have to be quite. I don't even mind my surroundings are loud or not.

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bjourne
It's a skill like any other and you can learn it by practicing.

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must_be_an_echo
This is a completely normal phenomenon and is not something you should view as
a personal deficiency of some sort. Generally speaking there is an axis at one
end of which there is the ability to deeply concentrate and analyze complex
matters and at another end of this axis there is the ability to eloquently
talk. People are all different and find themselves at different points along
this axis, with a varying ratio of those two skills.

Some people can't stop talking but they can't really do any professional work
either. Others aren't good at talking but possess the ability to build castles
and empires in their minds. While I'm sure there are bright individuals gifted
in both of those skills, it's been my observation that those two are mutually
exclusive. Not in a black-white fashion but in a way that an advance in one
skill implies the other has somewhat suffered as a result. More like two
positive fractional numbers that make 1 when combined but can't both be 1.

Note that I'm not talking about the "offline" ability to express one's
thoughts like in writing, let's call it this way. People who are clear
thinkers are often great communicators or at least have this ability in
themselves they can develop if they set their mind to it. I'm talking about
this ability of thinking and talking at the same time that you mention. It's
rarely found and cannot be expected from everyone.

This cleared now back to your immediate problem. First things first you should
not panic or feel frustrated, no more than about the rainy weather (if you
prefer sunny, otherwise it's the other way around). What you should do is
communicate to your interviewers what kind of person you are, that you can
easily discuss working matters with your colleagues but then when there is
some thinking to be done it can only happen in silence. My guess is that you
can't work in an open plan office either so these are the things you need to
communicate to your recruiters/interviewers. One bit of advice: do not word
your communication as if you were apologizing for that would-be limitation of
yours, but turn it around so that the other side feels they are somewhat
deficient in their processes and their way of working and can't quite live up
to your standards. If they want you on board, they might adapt the interview
style or skip some parts of it entirely.

I see you describe this style of interview as "the norm". Indeed it has become
ubiquitous but is not something I would describe as the norm. I wish to point
out that this only happens because developers accept to be treated this way.
If you want these practices to go away you have to push back. I for one
haven't done sample assignments, technical interviews or brain-teasing
problems for many years and that is something I communicate very early in the
negotiations if somebody wants to "interview" me. Getting to know each other
and discussing potential collaboration is good, being examined is not. For
that you have your academic degree (and hopefully some great projects to
show). This has always been a good filter to discard places and people I do
not want to work with. An interview should be used wisely to discuss things
which are really important, to get a sense of each other's personality and to
find out if there can be a match and a productive collaboration can take
place. Other than that it would just result in a few wasted hours in the lives
of everyone involved.

Long story short, it's all fine, cheer up, adjust your process slightly and
move on. Better opportunities will come.

