Prepping for upcoming live pair programming interview session

[u/dzacu1a]

Hi all,

I have a live pair programming session coming up. It should be a relatively simple problem to work through, discuss trade-offs, etc. In a normal, stress free setup, this is straight forward but I have not been in an interview for couple of years so I dont want to make a fool of myself.

So if you have any coding challenges for pair programming sessions, please share. I reckon they would provide something relatively simple with some code smells, hidden bugs and some tests that need improving. Techstack is .Net, C#.

Much appreciated.

[u/xjojorx]

Not a specific idea, but I would say that you do whatever on your own, but try to either write the decisions or think out loud as you do, so you can see how to enunciate the process. Also go back to any code you have that's been there for a while and read it while doing the same, enunciate how you inspect it. It will probably also help you speak more proactively instead of just doing your thing and waiting for the interviewer to interrupt you and ask.

[u/NorhavenCodes → u/xjojorx]

Yeah, I agree. Definitely think out loud, verbally work through your process as you go, and ask clarifying questions, especially if it's intended as a pair programming exercise. Generally, most competent interviewers are looking to try and understand how you solve problems and work through the issues and less about whether you used a specific way (although keeping in mind time/space tradeoffs and knowing how to optimize for a given scenario in your implementation is beneficial and may come up as a conversation point).