Comment by vidarh

Very rarely with people watching.

I've had only two oral exams, and they were awful, but even then they were far more conversational in nature, as opposed to a coding interview.

I do well on written tests.

I also do well in interviews, but I detest having people look over my shoulder while I code, and it absolutely tanks my performance. I only pass them because I'm experienced enough that I can be stressed out like crazy and perform really horribly compared to what I normally do and still do okay.

I've seen fantastic coders totally freeze up and be unable to do anything at all when being asked to write code in front of people, even though they have no problem talking through problem solving.

And I'm similar to that. I've held speeches in front of thousands, been on TV, held plenty of presentations, and can talk the ears of an interviewer with passion about complicated technical concepts, but have me write code while you watch, and I'd frankly much rather have a root canal treatment (I've been known to fall asleep during those).