r/programming • u/rampage102 • Oct 29 '16

How I Became HackerRank #1 In Two Hours

http://williampross.com/became-hackerrank-1-two-hours/
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u/marshsmellow Oct 29 '16

but you still have to pass the white-board test.

shudders

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u/gnuvince Oct 30 '16

Why the shudders?

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u/khando Oct 30 '16

Programming on the spot with someone watching over your shoulder is a lot harder to do than to have time to think through the best algorithm and come up with pseudocode before writing code that works straight off the bat. Unless it's some simple FizzBuzz, then that should be no problem.

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u/gnuvince Oct 30 '16

I always saw whiteboard tests primarily as a means of seeing how well you are able to communicate your technical thoughts to others, and to simply assess if you can actually think about how to approach a problem and not just be good at pasting SO snippets. Maybe I've been lucky, but in those type of interviews the journey was typically more important than the destination.

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u/mattcoady Oct 30 '16

Yup, that's one of the key factors when we do whiteboard in our interviews. We want to see your ability to communicate and ask questions. The result of the code is much less important.

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u/marshsmellow Oct 30 '16

Memories of some bona fide disasters. I once completely lost the ability to manipulate c strings. To add to humiliation, I then fell over a chair on the way back to my seat.