I, personally, cannot _think_ and _talk_ at the same time. It's just a stream of half-sentences, many of which my brain has already moved on from because what I originally thought won't work.
After writing this article it became very apparent to me that I'm complete garbage at interviews, but I'll outperform and exceed at the actual job function.
In my work, if you literally cannot write any code while also discussing the code, and if you literally cannot express thoughts while also thinking them, then you actually wont exceed at the actual job function, at all. You're not the only programmer on the team. I don't know why people think communication skills are not required for programmers. You won't be coding the correct thing unless you can talk about what you're doing.
And that's all I ever ask in an interview. Ask questions and talk about what you're doing. The worst hires I've ever seen were all the ones who never asked questions and never talked about what they were working on. Half sentences are fine; moving away from the keyboard while we talk is fine; being unable to talk and think at the same time probably is not.
> In my work, if you literally cannot write any code while also discussing the code, and if you literally cannot express thoughts while also thinking them, then you actually wont exceed at the actual job function, at all.
Followed by
> You're not the only programmer on the team.
It sounds like you're implying some connection between the two, whereas most successful teams don't require the behavior your team is demanding. Including the ones with good communication skills.
I can write code well. I can discuss it well. I simply don't need to do both at the same time. Unless people are in a pair programming session, they don't need to openly discuss the code while they're thinking about them and writing them. They can discuss the problem before and after. Why do they need to discuss it while coding?
It's like telling journalists or authors "Hey, if you can't discuss your story with the editor while you are authoring it then you can't succeed here."
>I don't know why people think communication skills are not required for programmers
That so significantly fails to resemble the claims being made that it strains credulity that it could be a good faith interpretation of the conversation.
>You won't be coding the correct thing unless you can talk about what you're doing.
Maybe, but that has no bearing on whether they need to be done at the same time, which they do not in just about work environment. I guess there's probably somewhere that does mandatory pair programming for everything, but I've certainly never seen it.
The vast majority of engineering design happens async - by typically a single engineer, puzzling/experimenting over possible solutions and then creating a design doc. Discussion then happens synchronously. Solving a complex design problem on the spot is not the norm.
I personally find system design interviews pretty tough - it's not a mode of operation I ever experience on the job. To solve them at Big Tech, you pretty much have to memorize many design patterns and be able to regurgitate them on the spot. Like algo questions, it's testing your ability to work hard to prepare more than anything else.
Not to say this doesn't have value as a filter, it's just not testing the thing you think it is.
If I'm not cut out to work in your environment, that's fine. I do disagree with your other conclusions, however. I'm not bad at communication, I'm bad at verbal communication while simultaneously trying to solve a problem. I'm excellent at problem solving and simultaneously chatting in something like slack, however.
Shit, I can’t take notes on a meeting and also participate—like, at all. Decent odds I’ll reach the end and struggle to give you even the gist of what happened, without reading my own notes. If I’m trying to take notes and someone addresses me I’ll be all kinds of confused about what the context is.
And that’s English and mostly just writing what people are talking about, not thinking up novel things to write.
After writing this article it became very apparent to me that I'm complete garbage at interviews, but I'll outperform and exceed at the actual job function.