How to prepare for a whiteboard interview

An initial call with the hiring manager: Check. A second call with the department manager: Check. A video call with the dev team: Check. Now, there’s only one thing standing between you and your dream job: A whiteboard interview.

It may sound intimidating at first, but with a little practice and these helpful tips, preparing for a whiteboard interview will seem as easy as copying and pasting your cover letter.

So, with all this pressure and no hands to hold, how can you begin preparing to impress your next employer? Never fear! We’ve put together a list to help you get ready.

What is whiteboarding?

The good news: whiteboarding is exactly what you think it is! It’s when you integrate a whiteboard into a process (in this case, a job interview). Because people process, focus on, and remember images better than words alone, adding a visual tool like a whiteboard can work wonders for your professional endeavors.

Whiteboarding is often incorporated in business processes like brainstorming sessions, business pitches, and product design meetings. It’s effective in these kinds of meetings because you can organize thoughts and images as you’re working. It doesn’t matter if you veer off your current topic; just throw up the question or idea on the whiteboard where it makes the most sense.

Another benefit is that you can erase just as easily as write. As soon as something becomes irrelevant, you can erase or delete it.

You can whiteboard with a physical board in front of you or take it online. Our own tool, Cacoo, offers the ability to whiteboard online by yourself or as a team. With everyone logged in, you can create and edit whiteboards together in real-time. Even better — there’s a video chat feature so you can discuss face to face right in the app. Sound perfect for your team? That’s why we made it.

Another place you’ll see whiteboarding is in last-round interviews for development positions. Although it is similar to a whiteboard design challenge, the whiteboard interview poses unique tests for a developer.

What is a whiteboard interview?

To demonstrate their skills in action, candidates for a dev job might complete a whiteboard interview. This will usually be the last and most time-consuming part of the candidate process.

With nothing but a whiteboard, the interviewer gives the candidate a problem or a task — similar to those they will perform if hired. From here, the developer must write out the code by hand that they would create to solve the problem they’ve been given. And, they need to explain their process and the decisions they’re making along the way.

Most modern developers have their favorite open source code saved and an IDE to check how their code is working along the way. This is a test to show what the developer is capable of without all of their favorite tools. Processes, vocab, and steps you haven’t thought about since your college days as a Comp Sci major are likely to come up, so be sure to swat up on the fundamentals.

Why do whiteboard interviews exist in the first place?

Whiteboard interviews might seem like a relic of the past, but there’s a reason they’ve stuck around — and it’s not just tradition. These interviews offer a rare opportunity for hiring managers to observe how a developer thinks, communicates, and solves problems in real time.

When filling a development role, employers aren’t just looking for someone who can write code. They want someone who can break down complex problems, make informed decisions under pressure, and explain their reasoning clearly to teammates or stakeholders. Whiteboard interviews simulate these challenges — with the added bonus of stripping away crutches like syntax highlighting or Stack Overflow tabs.

Think of it less as a test of perfection, and more as a window into your working style. Can you talk through ambiguity? Handle feedback mid-task? Spot edge cases without a debugger? These are the kinds of qualities that help distinguish a strong teammate from someone who just looks good on paper.

While not everyone loves the format, whiteboarding remains popular because it helps assess something beyond resumes and GitHub portfolios: your ability to think on your feet and collaborate under constraint.

What kinds of questions should you expect?

Whiteboard interviews usually fall into two categories: algorithm-based and system design-based. Each test tests different aspects of your thinking and skillset.

Algorithm and data structure challenges

These are often the go-to format — and can be the most anxiety-inducing for candidates. You’ll be given a contained, logic-based problem and asked to work through it using core concepts like arrays, trees, or recursion. Think of it less as showing off clever hacks and more as writing clean, deliberate logic under pressure.

Example: 

“Given a list of delivery times for different drivers, determine which driver has the most consistent delivery window.”

The goal here isn’t just solving it — it’s about how you unpack the problem, talk through assumptions, and test different edge cases as you go.

System design and architecture problems

These take a broader perspective. You might be asked to map out how a particular system could work, making decisions around data flow, scaling, and resilience. There’s rarely one right answer — what interviewers want to see is how you handle open-ended, collaborative thinking.

Example:
“Design a notification system that alerts users when new content is available. How would you prioritize messages and manage delivery across platforms?”

This gives you a chance to talk through trade-offs, ask clarifying questions, and show how you handle complexity in real-world systems.

How to prepare for a whiteboard interview

Like anything else in life, there are ways you can start preparing now (whether you have an interview coming up or just want to be ready when you land one). Here are some ways you can practice to increase your chances of success:

1. Do your research

Whiteboard interviews have been around long enough that the internet is full of resources to help you prepare for yours. Let’s go over a few easy preparation methods!

Google questions

Some questions are more common when it comes to whiteboarding interviews. Knowing a list of the most popular questions, the traits they share, and why they work well is a great place to start. Don’t waste your time memorizing them or the steps to solve them (this will only be to your detriment), but the more you understand what makes these questions useful, the better you’ll perform on your own question.

Find video tutorials

You can find videos of others online walking you through how to solve the problem. Watch a couple of them, and pay attention to their methods when working without a computer. What are the things that they say out loud? How do they overcome not being able to look up answers?

Research the company

Another great tip? Learn as much as possible about the specific tasks and culture of the company you’re interviewing with. The more you know, the more you’ll be able to tailor your preparation to what they’re looking for. You’ll also have a more in-depth knowledge of the specific functions they’ll be asking you to write out from memory.

2. Practice practice, practice

Studies show the biggest predictor of exam (or interview) success isn’t necessarily intelligence or charisma – it’s how much a person practices before heading in.

Get on a whiteboard

Whether that’s a physical whiteboard or a blank sheet in Cacoo’s whiteboard, get to practicing as much as possible. If you’re working with our online whiteboard, make sure you’re really limiting yourself from any other resources (as tough as that can be). You’re not doing yourself any favors by practicing with resources you won’t have available come the real deal. Do this at least a couple times until you feel (more) comfortable with the process.

Get a second opinion

If you know someone who also works in the field, ask if they would let you practice a whiteboard interview with them acting as your interviewer. Go through the process with them there (or on a video call) and make sure you have some Q and A along the way. At the end, they can give you feedback on steps where you seemed more or less confident. Where could you continue to improve before doing it live?

3. Work out loud

To start getting into the mindset, make sure you’re narrating every time you practice. Remember, it’s not about being perfect – it’s about showing (or explaining) your thinking.

Narrate

One of the most important aspects of the whiteboard interview is your ability to talk your interviewers through your process. To test yourself, make an audio recording of your explanation to see how you REALLY sound. It might be a bit less confident than you think. Find your weak spots and work on those more. It will probably feel like torture at first, but you’ll get used to it – promise.

4. Make a habit

Even when you’re not specifically working on a practice question, make a habit of explaining your processes. It’s most useful when working on other coding projects, but even if you’re doing the laundry, it can help. You’ll feel less self-conscious if you’re used to talking your actions through as you do them. Eventually, it’ll become second nature.

Why do some developers dislike whiteboard interviews?

Whiteboard interviews have their place — but they also have plenty of critics. Some developers avoid them entirely, and not because they’re underprepared or unqualified. The issue is often deeper than that.

One major criticism is that whiteboarding doesn’t reflect real-world development. Developers rarely code by hand without access to documentation, debugging tools, or the internet. So a whiteboard interview can feel less like a test of actual job skills and more like a performance — especially for candidates who aren’t used to verbalizing every decision as they go.

Another concern is that these interviews reward people who’ve had the time and resources to practice the format extensively. That creates an uneven playing field. Developers with caregiving responsibilities, side jobs, or non-traditional backgrounds may find themselves at a disadvantage — even if their practical skills are excellent.

Others simply object to the artificial pressure of the format. Solving a timed problem with someone watching can activate anxiety rather than insight — and that doesn’t always reflect how someone performs in the real world, especially over the long term.

None of this means whiteboard interviews should be tossed out entirely. But it does mean they need to be used thoughtfully — and paired with other ways to evaluate a candidate’s potential.

What makes a whiteboard interview actually useful? Tips for interviewers

If you’re going to use a whiteboard interview — or prepare for one — it helps to know what separates a good session from a bad one. Done right, these interviews can reveal a lot about a candidate’s skills. Done poorly, they can feel like a trivia contest under pressure. Here’s what makes the difference:

1. Focus on process over perfection

You’re not hiring a compiler — you’re hiring a human who can navigate ambiguity and reason through problems. Choose prompts that allow candidates to explain their thinking, not just land on the “right” answer. It’s more revealing to hear why they made a choice than whether the choice was optimal.

Tip: Pay attention to how they handle unexpected constraints or mid-way tweaks — that’s where real-world problem-solving shows up.

2. Ask questions that invite real-world reasoning

Skip the riddle-style brainteasers and go for challenges that reflect actual scenarios a developer might face on the job. A good question should leave room for creativity and tradeoffs — not just checking for academic recall.

Example: Instead of asking them to reverse a binary tree, ask how they’d debug a flaky notification system during peak traffic.

3. Make it conversational, not theatrical

Instead of sitting back silently while a candidate sweats through the problem, engage them. Offer clarification, invite questions, and encourage them to think aloud. You’re assessing collaboration skills as much as coding chops.

Ask: “What would you need to know before starting?” or “If this were a production bug, where would you begin?”

4. Evolve the prompt naturally

Great whiteboard interviews mimic how work actually unfolds — iteratively. Once the candidate walks you through an initial solution, expand the scope slightly. Introduce a new requirement, or change the context. See how they adapt.

Try: “Let’s say this needs to support international users — what changes?” or “How would you modify this for real-time data?”

5. Give space for reflection

Once the candidate has finished, don’t whizz on to the next thing. Invite them to critique their own work or imagine how they’d improve on things given more time, teammates, or resources.

Ask: “What would you do differently if this were going into production tomorrow?” or “Which parts of your solution feel most brittle?”

6. Be mindful of bias and accessibility

Remember, not everyone has equal time or background to rehearse whiteboard formats. Candidates with caregiving responsibilities, neurodivergent thinking styles, or limited access to prep resources may approach the interview differently — but that doesn’t mean they’re less capable.

Make sure your questions accommodate different ways of thinking, and don’t penalize pauses, clarifying questions, or off-the-cuff diagramming.

Are there alternatives to whiteboard interviews?

Absolutely. While whiteboard interviews can be insightful, they aren’t the only way — or always the best way — to assess a developer’s ability.

One increasingly popular alternative is the take-home project. Instead of solving a problem live, candidates are given a small, self-contained assignment to complete on their own time. This mirrors the kind of environment they’d actually work in: with access to their tools, time to reflect, and space to demonstrate both coding quality and practical design choices.

Take-home projects have a few major benefits:

• They reduce the pressure of “performing” live.
• They give candidates more time to showcase their strengths.
• They allow hiring teams to assess code quality in a real-world context.
• They’re a more accessible option for neurodivergent people, who tend to do better in environments they can control.

Of course, the take home format isn’t perfect. Not every candidate has free time to build a mini-app between interviews. Other might have hectic home environments. And without a live component, it can be harder to gauge communication skills or decision-making under pressure.

That’s why many companies tend to now use a blend: a smaller whiteboard-style exercise to check real-time reasoning, plus a take-home task to evaluate practical skills. The combination often provides a more complete — and fairer — picture of what someone brings to the table.

Get whiteboard-ready with Cacoo

Even though a whiteboard interview is intimidating, people have been completing them for years, and you’ll be able to too! Practice makes perfect, and we’re here to help get you through the process.

By signing up for Cacoo, you’ll be able to use Cacoo to start practicing your whiteboard interviewing skills before the big day comes. You can also use it in other facets of your life — with real-time collaboration and hundreds of built-in templates, Cacoo offers more than just a whiteboard at the convenience of a few clicks. Get started and start nailing those interviews!

This post was originally published on January 17, 2020, and updated most recently on August 13, 2025.