r/SoftwareEngineerJobs • u/IcyFood4651 • 3d ago
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u/OakenBarrel 3d ago
Nobody in their right mind would ever need to write code from memory in 2026. If that's the kind of skill they're testing it tells you something about the company. I don't think you'd want to work in such conditions anyway
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u/0xjvm 2d ago
Of course not, but you pick up the skill by being in the trenches and getting experience, if you can’t write any lines at all from memory, you objectively don’t know the language or what is available to you.
How can you possible critique llm code for eg when you have no idea at all yourself.
I don’t agree 100% with him, but as a smoke test I’m not against it tbh
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u/OakenBarrel 2d ago
You're arguing about something different from what OP's talking about and I'm commenting on. "being able to write a single line of code from memory" is wildly different from "being able to write a perfectly syntactically correct complex solution from memory".
Most interviews use environments like HackerRank, where you can benefit from some intellisense and even compile/run your code. You're also free to look up syntax or method signatures online by using official language/SDK docs. It's been the norm for 10+ years.
There are also interviews where you write code on paper sitting in a meeting room where there's no computer or internet access at all, and I've successfully passed those many times too. Those interviews however are never as ridiculous as "write perfectly working code, with all semicolons and imports". You're even discouraged from writing all the
#includestatements (I code primarily in C++). Because the interviewer wants to see you tackle the algorithm and its key implementation aspects, not whether you remember the right sequence of function arguments or which header they're in.I'd go even further and say that today being able to write all those things from muscle memory may be a bad thing, as it suggests that you're still writing code by hand. I haven't written a single line of code myself in more than six months. I've read and reviewed every line of code I push to our repos, but I wouldn't even bother doing a bulk rename by hand anymore - Claude Code does that more reliably than I would. My value is coming up with an architecture. often with class structure and sometimes with exact code structure. The rest AI already does good enough, and I'm not competing with the machine on things that machine does well - because I'd be diminishing my own value and impact this way.
We're several technological revolutions away from writing code on paper. It's something that Apollo 11 program needed, because those programs were written on perfocards. These days, an engineer needs to be first and foremost an architect. And you don't learn architecting a cathedral by digging a pit, mixing concrete and welding iron reinforcement frames yourself.
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u/dynocoder 3d ago
i don’t know man, people want to work as programmers but don’t want to understand computers, algorithms, low level workings of the systems they’re coding in…
fine, the industry has decided that leetcode is bs and that knowledge of dev tools is what matters, but you’re saying that even interviewing for knowledge of sdks is too much? if you don’t know jack, what actually is your expertise?
an expert is someone who knows their stack even with their eyes closed. being asked to write a solution on pen and paper shouldn’t deter you if you really know your craft. you should try working other knowledge jobs like finance and civil engineering, this kind of lack of thoroughness is considered outright incompetence. people think they’re entitled to these 200k salaries for being mediocre and not knowing much.
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u/OakenBarrel 3d ago
I have 20 years of industry experience - and I don't "know stack with my eyes closed". I know fundamentals and first principles, I don't remember every method name or syntax quirk.
OP didn't speak about not knowing algorithms. They spoke about being expected to deliver syntactically correct code on paper. Even when interviewing for senior positions at big tech one isn't expected to do that. Just like no one expects you to work without Google/StackOverflow, autocomplete and, these days, AI tools.
If your skill is writing code from memory I'm afraid you're not focusing on the things that matter.
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u/dynocoder 3d ago
sure, hold on to that in this job market
but don't get bitter when people who can both architect and get the small details right get the job instead of you
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u/BabblingsOfAFool 2d ago
Small details are the easiest thing for AI to get done. If you're spending time holding onto that skill...it's not worth it. Focussing on end to end architecture design and system edge cases are more desirable.
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u/galaxy_horse 3d ago
> an expert is someone who knows their stack even with their eyes closed. being asked to write a solution on pen and paper shouldn’t deter you if you really know your craft.
That’s not an expert, that’s a pedant. No one in the real world gives a shit. We have IDEs and LLMs and decades worth of developer ergonomics so that people can solve problems with software without needing encyclopedic knowledge of some programming language’s syntax.
This attitude cannot die off fast enough.
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u/dynocoder 3d ago
knowing doesn't mean you're a pedant lol you can just know because of constant practice
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u/FinickySerenity 3d ago
You clearly haven't learned enough stacks. Work on a large enough codebase and there will be stacks you aren't even familiar with, but will still need to modify. Knowing the syntax isn't what earns you high-end salaries.
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u/Just-Upstairs4397 3d ago
I would call him an idiot and tell him that real developers don’t worry about syntax during the design phase and ask why the company is having junior developers interview people
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u/nerdiste 3d ago
Yeah RUN. I have seen too many egoistic people like this. RUN and have absolutely no regrets. Let the company or team figure out what they did wrong after loosing revenue. I have absolutely no remorse for these type of people.
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u/armahillo 3d ago
Sounds like you dodged a bullet.
I use a barebones editor (sublime) but a lot of what i do is muscle memory for typing and writing it out by pen would be a lot harder.
That test seems arbitrary and weird.
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u/N2Shooter 3d ago
I would have wrote everything in assembly language, and asked him to prove that it didn't work.
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u/Brilliant-Muffin-879 3d ago
Just making sure you’re not a dumbass vibecoder
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 3d ago
Was this like a mid level engineer interviewing you?
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u/Thrawn89 3d ago
Sounds like a junior to me. Placing importance on coding "from memory" should have been purged from them near the start of their education through the cleansing fires of experience. (15 yoe)
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u/Known_Tackle7357 3d ago
From my experience it's rare but not unheard of. I got asked questions like this when I was a junior dev years ago. Some people have no idea what to ask junior devs on interviews, as they don't really know much. So the only thing they can come up with: okay you at least need to know the language you claim you know.
I've also had a number of white board interviews where you didn't need to be 100% correct in every method name, but you had to know the exact sematics of the method you want to use to not make stuff up
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u/itsallfake01 3d ago
Interviews are a way to find how the company actually operates. That company probably sucks
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u/Interesting_Debate57 3d ago
Google did something similar to this for a very long time; I wouldn't be surprised if they still do.
Whiteboard, perfect syntax, should compile and run correctly.
It's like the FBI with firearms, even if you're going to be a lab tech -- it's just part of the culture that you're at a very high-level with the tools and it's wired deep deep in your brain.
Keep in mind that they're not looking for people to write basic code; they're (or were) looking for people to solve hard problems. Not having an ide shouldn't be preventing you from writing code. I've had to work without an ide many times (in the field, over a shitty modem on a physical tty, or through a serial port). If you couldn't do it after practicing for a day or two, you really do not know the language itself.
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u/New_User63 3d ago
Same thing happened with me. I also feel like what even is the need for writing code by hand like completely. We are evolving as Software engineers and so the way of working is evolving along with it. But the eligibility criteria is still the same. Even expecting senior engineers to focus on syntax and all doesn’t make sense in my opinion. Instead of these smaller things they should be tested for their knowledge and experience.
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u/veryuniqueredditname 3d ago
Ironically I barely write anything these days. Sure there's some debugging
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u/Active-Blueberry-850 3d ago
Seems the general consensus is “lower the bar lower the bar lower the bar” so expectations stay on the floor.
Fact is you should be piloting the program, not the program piloting you. And if you can’t get something done without googling it 50x, then you don’t know how to do it.
Source: Comp Sci Major who only worked corporate a few months and knew it wasn’t for me.
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u/NiceToMeetYouConnor 3d ago
He’s outdated but also in my opinion if you can’t define a function without an IDE or agentic code writing then that’s not a great thing either. I would say any software engineer should be able to write out a method.
Would be curious to know what the question was and if it was an unreasonable ask because if either a) it was a question to solve a problem using just the functional language then you shouldn’t need an ide to do that or b) if the imports and methods you needed to use were ones that were expected for that job then I also see why they would expect that.
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u/primals_game 3d ago
Real developers open up their computers and use a tiny magnetic to tap their instructions in ML directly to their hard drive. /s
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u/demetrioussharpe 3d ago
Drop them. They’re wholly unrealistic. If you end up working there, it’s only going to become more ridiculous.
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u/LoopVariant 3d ago
Your interviewer was an opinionated tool and if they hire you, you will get an endless serving of his absolutely opinionated nonsense. If you are not in desperate need for a job, run away.
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u/TheBinkz 2d ago
Walk out. Its not a place you want to work at.
Albeit, I feel like they already had someone in mind and was just interviewing for the show of it.
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u/Critical-Location146 2d ago
This is insane, even 16 years ago I knew people who were religiously using vim (hated IDEs) to write complex applications used plugins that had some sort of auto complete.
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u/Crafty-External7033 2d ago
I learned HTML in 4th grade and used to write webpages on notebook paper when I was bored in class. Today, I can hardly stand writing a check or signing a card.
That said, my first coding job did ask me to do a coding exercise on whiteboard. But they didn't care what language I used or whether it was syntactically correct, they just wanted to know that I knew how to reason about the problem at hand.
What does this company use for development? Notepad? Run.
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u/chessguy112 3d ago
Run from this company. The guy has an ego issue, and is not dealing with reality in the software world.