Practiced system design on a laptop for weeks, then they handed me a marker and a real whiteboard
I spent like three weeks doing mock system design interviews on my laptop, drawing boxes in Excalidraw, timing myself, all of it. Walk into the onsite and there's a literal whiteboard and a dry erase marker sitting on the table. My brain just blanked for a second because I hadn't held a marker since college. The interviewer could tell and said take your time, but I lost a good two minutes just re-orienting myself to writing sideways instead of typing. Got through it fine in the end, the diagram was messier than I wanted but the reasoning came out okay. Now I make myself do at least one practice round a week with an actual whiteboard in my apartment, feels dumb but apparently the muscle memory is real.
2 comments
- 0
AnonymousAnon Do you ask upfront now whether it's whiteboard or laptop before you show up? Feels like something recruiters should just tell you.
- 0
AnonymousAnon Same thing happened to me except it was a glass wall with markers that had basically run dry. Spent half my mental energy shaking a marker instead of thinking about the design.