
Ask HN: Do you like code pairing interviews? I hate them - penguinlinux
I dislike code pairing interviews.  Specially ones where you haven&#x27;t even talked to the team, don&#x27;t know anything about the people they just give you a laptop connected to a tv so that they can sit infront of you and watch you code.   Maybe I am the only one but I can&#x27;t perform when someone is watching me or analyzing what I am doing.  I would prefer if they gave me a set of tasks.  A github repo where I commit code and then I submit the code and we can discuss what I did and my reasoning.  But when I am being watched I forget everything.  It sucked :(
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penguinlinux
What made it frustrating is that I am the type of person who likes to have my
dev environment setup for coding, I also work in linux and not on a mac. I am
also a quiet type of guy who codes best when I am sitting on my own. I do work
with my team very well but I feel weird when people are watching over my
shoulder. The funny thing is that I went to a second interview at a company
that is doing interesting things with biometrics and large scale problems and
their approach was to ask me lots of interesting questions about how i handled
scaling, how to debug performance, optimzing queries, log analysis. I am a
senior engineer with years of experience and these guys were very smart, at
the end of the interview their HR person came and said the team loved me and
would like to extend an offer. My jaw dropped. I came from a really bad
interview to a place where they are doing more advanced stuff and I got the
job. I thank them so much because I felt they gave me a fair chance to get to
know me. :)

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whichdan
Would it be easier if you had half an hour to chat with the person before you
jumped into writing code?

A lot of companies prefer pair programming so they can talk through problems
with a candidate, both to get a feel for how they approach their work, and to
make sure they aren't blocked on anything, given the limited amount of time.
Was your interviewer talking with you while you paired?

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andymoe
What you are describing is a pretty poor pairing interview process. I did a
bunch of really frustrating whiteboard type interviews and sudo pairing
interviews like you describe before interviewing for my current position [1].

The screen is a one hour onsite pairing session followed by a final round that
is a day of pairing using a proper workstation: One computer, two monitors and
two sets of mice/keyboards. You pair with one person in the morning and
another in the afternoon. It's very relaxed (you take turns "driving") and it
gives you and the interviewers a lot more information about each other and
your potential place of work. It also gives you enough time to adjust to the
process if you are nervous. I don't think I'd do it any other way going
forward.

[1] [http://pivotal.io/careers](http://pivotal.io/careers)

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krsgoss
I would love to work for an outfit like Pivotal. Unfortunately I live in Maine
and I know they don't do remote. :( I'm feeling seriously burnt out at my
current position as the culture seems to be predominantly "throw something
against the wall." There seems to be little thought towards maintainability,
testing, etc. so feels like I'm pushing a rock up the hill continually trying
to provide suggestions in PRs, etc.

If anyone knows of any well run consulting outfits that work with remote
workers, practice pairing, TDD, and just all around "giving a shit" I'd
welcome pointers.

Thanks!

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jon-wood
I'll second that. I find it really odd more consulting companies aren't remote
given their clients almost always are anyway.

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lingua_franca
Pivotal does pair-programming, which demands inflexible hours and
intensive/stressful workload. Working remote is impossible as you cannot pair
with another colleague.

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jon-wood
Sure you can. Maybe not quite so efficiently, but its far from impossible

~~~
lingua_franca
hv u done pair-programming before?

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partisan
After searching for developers this year, I can say that pair programming
during an interview is hard on the interviewee and could also be frustrating
for the interviewer.

That said, our best hire was the one person who rose to the occasion and
solved the problem we were asking. For that reason, I would do it again.

~~~
5h
As an Interviewer I had a similar experience a while ago, there was a large
language barrier with the candidate that was utterly obliterated once
collaborating on code.

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J-dawg
It would be cool if there was some kind of service to simulate these
interviews, where you can code while being watched in real time and then
receive good quality feedback. Does anything like this exist?

~~~
avitzurel
Something like this was shared here not too long ago.

[https://www.pramp.com/](https://www.pramp.com/)

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J-dawg
This looks great, thanks for sharing. Have you used it?

~~~
avitzurel
Nope

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kspaans
It's definitely a new skill on top of sitting alone and writing code. You can
practice by doing some pair programming at your current workplace, with a
friend, or at a coding meetup.

Edit: it may also mean the company you are interviewing at does pair
programming. If you don't like pair programming, the interview is a good time
to bring it up!

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gesman
It's sort of like assigning a watcher to you while you using a bathroom.

Usually companies who engage in these practices have tendencies to micromanage
their personnel down the road.

Red flag.

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sportanova
This sounds better than whiteboarding, but I think you're right. There's a big
Heisenberg effect going on that's going to cause a lot of false positives

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detrino
A more common complaint is about whiteboard coding. Having a laptop connected
to a projector is exactly what many people say they would prefer.

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binarysoul
This is simply a skill worth learning if you are not good at it already

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sidcool
I like them a lot. It tests a lot of things.

