As some employees start returning to their offices, there might not be a rush to return to the physical whiteboard for coding interviews.
Alan Voss, a senior software engineer at delivery app Postmates, said he’s been conducting virtual interviews since he began working remotely more than eight years ago. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Today, video conferencing tools like Google Meet make it easy to schedule and connect from anywhere around the world, Voss said. When it comes to coding, he embraces the virtual whiteboard tool CodeSignal because it provides basic syntax highlighting, can run code in more than 40 languages and leaves a permanent record of the session for later reference.
Whiteboarding is a skill usually reserved for interviews, not practical use, Voss said. With CodeSignal and other digital tools, he’s able to judge candidates more accurately and run their code to see if it actually works. And for what it’s worth, he can always read candidates’ handwriting.
What tools or technology do you use at Postmates to conduct code review and whiteboarding interviews virtually, and why?
We use Google Meet for video and audio, which is a single click on the calendar for most candidates and requires no external applications running on either the interviewer’s or the candidate’s computer.
For virtual whiteboarding and running of code, CodeSignal is the tool of choice, which is great because it provides basic syntax highlighting, can run code in more than 40 languages and leaves a permanent record of the session for later reference. We use Greenhouse to record information about the candidate by filling out a scorecard and including details on how the candidate performed.
Most candidates are more comfortable typing in an editor, so it’s a win for both sides.”
How do you adapt the format or content of these types of interviews when conducting them virtually?
I personally live in Kansas City, Missouri, and have been considered a remote employee from the start of my employment here. I’ve never personally done any in-person interviews as the interviewer, but I did my personal interview as a candidate in the office in a non-virtual way with a whiteboard. Because of the change from using whiteboarding to CodeSignal, we not only require that candidates successfully design an algorithm and sketch out a solution in the time allotted, but also add the additional requirement of getting their solution to run after coding it. This helps us level the candidate more accurately.
Whiteboarding is its own skill, but most candidates are probably more comfortable typing in an editor rather than scribbling on a whiteboard, so it’s a win for both sides.
What’s your best piece of advice for leaders who are now tasked with handling technical interviews virtually, and why?
Talk to several other employees in the organization who are administering interviews. Speak with those who’ve done it a lot and those who are relatively new at it. It’s important that we don’t just do interviews “the way we’ve always done them” or the way we prefer them to be done. We have to think about what’s best for the organization both technically and culturally, and that takes outside input.
