Man, one time I had an interview at a startup. They asked me some fairly trivial questions and I wrote some pseudocode which they were fine with. Then in the last 5 minutes they were like, "well, let's get this ready to run in a browser." I was shocked and stuttered out something like "wait, this was pseudocode, I'm definitely not going to be able to make this run in the last 5 minutes," and they said something like "oh, OK" and wrapped up.
That was the entire phone screen, and they failed me. This still burns me years later because it was such an obvious communication failure on their part - if you're one of the rare interviews that actually require me to write working code, you better be darn sure to mention that upfront, rather than 5 minutes before the end of the hour! - and yet I was the one who failed.
That was the entire phone screen, and they failed me. This still burns me years later because it was such an obvious communication failure on their part - if you're one of the rare interviews that actually require me to write working code, you better be darn sure to mention that upfront, rather than 5 minutes before the end of the hour! - and yet I was the one who failed.