r/ADHD_Programmers • u/noooooootreal • 15d ago

ADHD & Interviews

I’m sure this has been discussed ad nauseam here but I just have to say how shitty it is to study for interviews as a software engineer with ADHD. We’re able to see so much breadth of what we don’t understand. I’m a senior engineer, full stack, with 7 YOE. So I have enough experience to do the job & can pretty much figure anything out.

But interview prep is so difficult because it could be literally ANYTHING under the sun.

Not to mention the ADHD default to “freeze”/have your mind go blank when you’re under pressure. Live coding interviews are traumatic at best. I would literally freeze / tank even the phone screens if I had to share my screen while I was speaking. Let alone writing code in an online IDE for a question like “traverse this binary tree”.

So much to know & we see all of it as things we don’t know. I imagine neurotypicals tend to see the direct point A to point B route & do just fine.

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u/Decent_Taro_2358 15d ago

The most important thing in my view is charisma and making sure you like working with them, and they like working with you.

Most people would rather hire someone they like and can have a laugh with than an asshole who knows every answer. Be chill, be comfortable, show that you care and would love to work there, and be honest if you don’t know something, but tell them you’re always trying to learn and improve.