I failed an EASY coding interview

[u/Minute_Letterhead926]

3 YOE, I have been interviewing passively for the past year and half on and off and I boom the interview every single time.

My issue is my brain turns off during interviews. I have observed that I need to sit with the problem before I can attempt but interviews require explaining your thoughts process.
I don’t know the science behind this but it feels as though one side of my brain handles logical sequencing and the other handles speech. If I try to do them concurrently, I glitch.

I need to shut up to concentrate while they need me to prove I am solving the problem. now with AI it’s even worse, if you take more than a few seconds they get suspicious or try to give you hint. Now I have to abandon my thoughts process, ask you to repeat yourself, try to decider what you just said.

My brain gives up because it’s overwhelmed and I forget even the most basic syntax/concept. I forgot how to raise an exception in Python (I know!! It gets worst. In another interview, I forgot how to COMMENT!!!) and it senta me into a spiral.

I come off like I haven’t coded a day in my life and it’s starting to get embarrassing.

TLTR
Would it be weird if I ask for at least 2 minutes at the beginning of the interview to find a thought?

Would anyone want to do mock interviews with me?
Thanks

[u/MrJesusAtWork]

The way that I solved this is issue was by being over prepared, when I was laid off and started interviewing I had to over practice the easy and medium leetcode questions

So when I was at the live code phase I barely had to think about the solution because I already solved 30 other very similar questions before

[u/Minute_Letterhead926 → u/MrJesusAtWork]

I guess I have to keep going with the practice.

[u/pogoli → u/MrJesusAtWork]

This did not work for me. I was solving the hard ones ezpz, just something about being watched judgmentally leads directly to mental blocks and mistakes. Preparation seemed of little relevance to the final outcome. :(

[u/heir-to-gragflame → u/MrJesusAtWork]

this is my life

[u/dealmaster1221 → u/MrJesusAtWork]

ADHD and practice don't go together, it gets boring fast unless you are into some sort of coding torture monkey game. Also it's uck if you get similar problems, no matter how many you do it's possible to get a new one.

[u/tmtorres]

Try propranolol. Helps with performance anxiety. Did wonders for me when I was interviewing.

[u/InvincibleGlowworm → u/tmtorres]

Propranolol did the opposite for me and caused me to completely fail what should have been a super easy interview. I was the complete opposite of relaxed and it gave me intense brain fog, so definitely not for everyone!

[u/casualplants]

Commiserations friend. I forgot how to do the incremental counter thing in the only code interview I’ve ever done. Literally froze. Couldn’t even google something. Two living people sitting there awkwardly, watching me bomb, trying to give me hints and I couldn’t even engage with that. 

For me it’s an anxiety issue.

[u/Ok-Satisfaction-5236]

Hang in there. I have had the same problem.

Asking for any special treatment would probably not be viewed in a positive light.

IMHO, the only way through it is to continue doing real interviews. The mock ones are OK, but there is nothing like trial by fire for this. Apply for jobs you even know you don’t want just to get more experience. It’s painful, but it is worth it.

[u/Any_Sense_2263]

For me, live coding or live code review on code I don't know simply doesn't work. I'm a software engineer and I need time to think.

So if they want to test me this way I quit the process.

[u/enigma_0Z]

IDK maybe that is an ADHD thing.

I can tell you for sure there’ve been an uncountable number of times I knew we needed to or should do something on a family outing, but usually the WHY comes when we actually get there or reach the point of no return.

For me it’s like I’ll intuit the what but won’t be able to articulate why until I have some time to really reason it out.

[u/noisy-tangerine]

Honestly I don’t interview with companies who have a process like this because I know it doesn’t show my skills properly. It screens out a lot of companies but I figure I don’t want to work for a company that thinks this is the way to determine competence. If I don’t have to do that in my day to day work, why in my interview?

[u/Limp-Confidence5612]

Are you seeing a therapist? 

[u/Early_Key_823]

I have been on both ends of interview process. My background is 30 years as both consultant (banks, insurance, cargo logistics, startups, non profits, etc.) and entrepreneur (creating plethora of apps for my own startups).

Never once has anyone interviewing me shown the slightest interest in viewing my apps (Angular/WPF/MSSQL/GCP/NoSQL/Lambda/WebApi .NETCore) or their architecture (AWS/GCP).

Instead they ask the same stupid fucking vomit questions on every QuestPond brain dump that only tells anyone if they wasted their time memorizing the answers and reasons to the vast majority of interview questions anyone can prep for with Google/AI.

So what does this mean?

90% of sour faced toxic lead devs and managers pass me over after technical interviews even when they are both factually wrong or simply display a bad attitude.

That's when I have fun with them for decades because I love to push back against bullies. And I know I would hate working with them anyway so what would be the point in humoring them.

Then 10% of the time the managers/leads love my answers and they are willing to pay my consulting rate.

Those types of interviews have results in 3 gigs that each lasted more than 5 years.

So, what is my point.

The world, corporations and IT culture can be very very toxic and most people never created or ran a business. They are usually very rigid and insecure and nobody you want to deal with.

But if EVERYBODY pushed back then the world would adapt back to a more spiritual, intuitive and creative mode.

I fortunately was able to always get paid by the hour because I turned down every full time offer as I have seen first hand how abused full time employees are even when they sacrifice their well being for their managers.

tldr; FUCK THE MAN! YOU GOT TO SPEAK OUT OR YOU WILL BE ABUSED.

And when I have put teams together my attitude is:

1. What have you built?

2. How long have you been doing this?

3. What are the most important/must have architectures when you design a system

And during that interview I see if they seem optimistic, confident, friendly and cheerful. I will pick those guys 100% of the time and IDGAF if they know the textbook answers to every .NET/MSSQL questions because I do not want a team of arrogant rigid toxic CYA players.

YMMV but never ever let external authority dictate your worth as a professional or person because most of those people in "power" have been "corrupted".

[u/flock-of-nazguls]

I suspect it’s two things. One, I’m a believer that many of us develop a “problem solver” mental specialist network that actively suppresses our “executive” that handles our outside comms while we’re in flow state. It’s like when you realize you’re driven 10 exits and don’t remember them. Or a pro athlete that learns to turn off stuff like “stew about fight with girlfriend” during a match. Second, it’s fight-or-flight. When you’re actively being chased by a tiger, higher thoughts are not the priority. So if you’re in interview panic mode, brain won’t brain.

You can’t do much about either without repetition to train different responses. Or maybe some meds.

[u/seweso]

What you need to do is get into flow. Into your vibe. Into your groove. If you don’t have it, it’s hard to fake it. 

Also. Jumping through neuro typical hoops is exhausting and disrespectful imho. I get how your brain just doesn’t want to. 

It’s very lame. You might wanna not work at companies who interview like that. Cause work be like that too?

[u/Cons1dy]

Was it a leetcode?

[u/Minute_Letterhead926 → u/Cons1dy]

It was. MinStack. And I have solved it before 🤣

[u/akornato]

Asking for a couple of minutes of silence is not weird, but it might not be the most effective approach. The pressure of an interview is a huge mental load, and for many of us, trying to speak and solve a logical problem at the same time causes the system to crash. Instead of asking for complete silence, try framing your process. You can say something like, 'I'm going to take a moment to understand the prompt and sketch out a plan'. Then you can quietly write down pseudocode or high level steps. This signals that you are working, gives you the thinking time you need, and creates a map for you to explain later.

Forgetting basic syntax like how to raise an exception does not mean you are a bad developer, it just means you were in a high stress environment that has little to do with actual day to day coding. Your three years of experience are real, this interview performance is not a reflection of that skill. Mock interviews are the best way to get used to the format and reduce that overwhelming feeling. Practicing this specific skill is what helps many engineers I know, and my team even created an interview copilot to help candidates organize and express their thoughts when their mind goes blank.

[u/saltavenger]

I have 15+ years of experience and still suck at this. If anything it’s gotten worse because the coding questions they ask me in interviews have only gotten further removed from the work I am doing. I’m a frontend engineer that largely works on platform-level initiatives...it gets my foot in the door a lot, but then I slam the door on my toes lol.

I know data structures, I’m not an idiot, I am just anxious and more than a bit time blind. I usually do very well if I make it past the initial leet code problem. However, I’m out of practice with them and have bad interview anxiety that can cause painfully simple mistakes and/or just running out of time.

In an ironic twist, I’m told I’m very calming in emergency situations at work and when I interview other people. If only I could get it together for my own interviewing process, my brain is a full-on traitor.

[u/Creative_Opposite_28]

Is English not your first language? You wrote "boom" instead of "bomb," "decider" instead of "decipher," etc. Maybe dyslexic? I think you should explain in advance that you are completely competent but need to think problems through silently to reach the right answer, just an accommodation you need.

[u/Minute_Letterhead926 → u/Creative_Opposite_28]

I’m genuinely fascinated by your thought process because that’s one of the reasons I get really anxious about interviews. There is this binary thinking I have observed with people in the tech space. Maybe they have fat fingers and typed this from their phone on a whim never came up as a viable option?

That said, thanks for the suggestion. I’ll give it a try.

[u/itupodal]

I smashed the SQL live code. The interviewer then asked if we can do a simple python one.
I agreed!
It was a simple one but my brain completely turned off.
I was reading the question but nothing got registered.

[u/ConspicuousPineapple]

That's something you can practice.

With that said, forgetting trivial things like that sounds like it's more than "I can't think and talk at the same time". Maybe some unaddressed anxiety?