I was ushered into a conference room where a young woman briefly went over my resume, then proceeded to the whiteboard! Programmers, you know you deserve the punishment! Anyway, the programming problem she posed was odd, not one that you're likely to encounter in real life, and she was *not* good at describing the problem, contradicting herself once or twice and making it much more convoluted than it needed to be. With a clearcut explanation and left alone to think for myself I should have been able to finish quickly. But that was not to me as she kept intervening every step of the way of causing me to lose my train of thought. Never once was she friendly.
Plus one of the functions it relied on - settimeout() - was one I've only used once or twice in my entire programming career so I couldn't remember the precise parameters orders and it seemed like she deducted points for that. I guess I’m expected to memorize every programming function every created, all the parameters and parameter orders! Then she posed an additional question which again in itself wasn't difficult, but the way the posed it made was overly complicated and when I suggested the simplest solution - CSS3 flex - she shot it down because she didn't want to use 3rd party libraries. So clearly she didn't know what it was, leaving me to resort to older less efficient solutions, and even then she kept interrupting like she had something specific in mind she wanted me to do. So basically at this point I just kind of shut off since it felt she was discounting me and working against me instead of with me.
Then they brought in the 2nd programmer, a young man who seemed half dead. I was immediately a little worried since He seemed already to have decided against me before I had said or done anything. I should note that I was significantly older than both interviewers and felt that that was definitely working against me. He asked general questions about my work experience which I answered more than adequately. I really had to struggle to keep the conversation going as he seemed barely awake. But at least I thought the conversation went well, what there was of it.
Afterwards, a 3rd interviewer walked in and asked me how I thought it went. I said I didn’t know, but thought it was going ok all things considered (given the poor interviewing process, which I didn’t comment on). He said well, the feedback from the 2 interviewers was that it wasn’t going well. I said, well that’s kind of shock. I tole him I guess it has something to do with ‘cultural fit’ and ‘age’. He mumbled something under his breath and I was escorted out the door.
Companies, please, if you must treat your programmer interviews so much differently than you would other job candidates, and subject them to weird wnite board tests on the kind of problems they will never encounter in real life, please at least have someone qualified to do it. Better yet, just talk about their work or have them bring in a coding sample. No need to force them to spend weeks studying “How I Cracked the Coding Interview”. How many other jobs require weeks of prepping on obscure subject matter that they will never use in a real job. Treat them as more than coding machines but as 3-dimensional human beings. Interact with them as real human beings and treat them respectfully. Don’t make assumptions about their coding abilities based on their age, gender, or race. Best of all, look at their work history and work they’ve actually accomplished; that should give you the best idea of the work they will be able to do at your company.