I only whiteboarded once as a junior role. It was actually kind of fun, but they gave me a skills appropriate question, had some good feedback, and let me do the whole thing in pseudo C code.
I had good feedback too! It was a sort of take on a sorting/search problem with a ton of inserts if I recall. Each loop I had, I was reallocating the size of the array by 1 or so. They pointed out, hey, we actually know the size up front right? Let's just allocate the perfect amount right up front.
The better other interviews I had weren't whiteboarding as much as talking through a problem. One is the famous "Urinal Algorithm". you walk into a bathroom with 10 urinals. Where do you stand? No right or wrong answer there. Now you walk in as a second person.. where do you stand?
A second was a sort of "Whats the minimum number of steps you can take to determine where an element is in an array?". you know getting 'hotter/colder' like the kids game, but you can jump around. It's not stated in all algorithmic terms, but you can figure it out with a bit of grasping around and its important for me to see someones process than it is to memorize an algorithm.
it forces a junior person to think through a problem, with some guided help and as a more senior person now, i see that's more valuable in assessing if a junior person can fit in with your style of teaching.
I had good feedback too! It was a sort of take on a sorting/search problem with a ton of inserts if I recall. Each loop I had, I was reallocating the size of the array by 1 or so. They pointed out, hey, we actually know the size up front right? Let's just allocate the perfect amount right up front.
The better other interviews I had weren't whiteboarding as much as talking through a problem. One is the famous "Urinal Algorithm". you walk into a bathroom with 10 urinals. Where do you stand? No right or wrong answer there. Now you walk in as a second person.. where do you stand?
A second was a sort of "Whats the minimum number of steps you can take to determine where an element is in an array?". you know getting 'hotter/colder' like the kids game, but you can jump around. It's not stated in all algorithmic terms, but you can figure it out with a bit of grasping around and its important for me to see someones process than it is to memorize an algorithm.
it forces a junior person to think through a problem, with some guided help and as a more senior person now, i see that's more valuable in assessing if a junior person can fit in with your style of teaching.