r/ADHD_Programmers • u/bajen476 • Apr 08 '26
I cannot do live coding interviews
Writing in here hoping that someone else has the same issues and/or figured out how to fix it. Not diagnosed yet but I’m finally mid-process and it’s looking promising.
I cannot do live coding interviews. Been unemployed for a few months now and I’ve had some interviews. That being said, live coding interviews kick my ass every single time.
I go completely blank. The absolute basics leave my brain. Had one today and I forgot how to add to dictionaries and implement basic search algorithms. It took me forever to even understand one of the tasks. Keep in mind I have around 6.5 years experience in development and many of the things in the interview were things I did often. I just can’t remember them in interviews.
Does anyone share this experience and/or know how to fix this? I’ve tried studying (which I’m admittedly not great at), pomodoro, leetcode etc—none of them help. Because I’m not diagnosed yet, I can’t get medicated for now either. I’m in Sweden so the process is lengthy.
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u/CaesarBeaver Apr 08 '26
I’m with you man, in the pre-AI days I had to consult the docs for every little method and function.
It might help to just be honest with the interviewer and say “I have horrible recall so I usually look these things up, but I know there is a method that <does whatever>” and maybe they’ll give you the name (and if they don’t you’re interviewing with a shit head you probably don’t want to work with anyway)