How To Smash Live-Coding Interviews

Read this on my substack: https://jackwebbwriting.substack.com/p/how-to-smash-live-coding-interviews

You can talk the talk and code the code, but can you talk the code?

This article isn’t going to suggest problems that come up in interviews, instead it is going to be about how to beat the live-coding interview challenges. Spoiler alert, it takes practice.

The hardest part about the live-coding interview is that you have to describe what you are doing, whilst you do it AND you are being watched. This is means you have to think and speak clearly, whilst under pressure.

Practice Thinking Out Loud

If You Already Have a Job
If you already have a job and are looking to get a new job, you have the easiest access to practice scenarios. You can grab anyone from your team and show them a problem you are working on, describing it to them as you go. Or you can volunteer to help someone with their problem and describe your thinking pattern as you go.

If You Don’t Already Have A Job

Here you’re going to need help from some friends, if you don’t have friends, then I don’t know, reach out to me and I will help.

Practice Working Under Pressure

If the pressure of being watched is what gets you, you need to simulate this pressure in your practice. We aren’t born immune to stress, Navy Seals and firefighters are taught how to handle insanely stressful situations so that when stuff hits the fan, they are ready to jump into action.

You just need to train yourself to handle this stressful situation.

You can already code, that’s why you have a job.

Now you just need to be good at interviewing, that is for some reason a skill that is nothing like having the job, but that isn’t why we’re here today.

Simulating Pressure

There are 3 good ways to do this:

Give presentations where you teach a concept live

This will create pressure, because you will be talking to multiple people. If you’re hardcore, invite your boss for bonus pressure.

You will be describing what your code is doing, so you have to be clear and accurate.

People will ask questions, allowing you to see where your thinking and describing is unclear.

Demos have a habit of going wrong, so you will get embarrassed. Not die. Realise you didn’t die, and keep going, stronger than before.

Mock Interviews

The pressure of even a fake interview can make it feel like the real thing, the stress isn’t as high, but it’s part of the way there, helping you feel less stressed.

You can practice the thought process with someone you know and if you make an embarrassing mistake you have lost nothing, because your friend won’t mind, unless they’re a shitty friend.

You can go back and work on bits where you get stuck, because there are no consequences to messing it up.

Real Interviews

You can’t prepare so well that you will get every interview you do, in fact if you do, you are probably aiming too low.

There will always be another job, so this is the best practice possible, because it’s the real thing.

It’s harder to actually get practice this way, as it requires interviews in the first place, but that’s a problem to solve for another post.

Film Yourself

This adds the pressure of the audience if you post it or stream it.

You could even watch yourself back and realise where you lose it, but don’t worry about being too captivating, unless you are going for a presenter job, which I have no idea how to help with.