Live data from Hacker News

I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

reddit.com

31–40 of 497 posts

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#31
Complaining about leetcode is unproductive. Leetcode is not even that hard, tons of material and key to the answer is on the internet.

Another benefit is, its streamline job searching. You practice once and you can use the same skill to interview for many companies.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#32

They can, it depends on the role. Not referring to you but I have never understood why DevOps at many companies can’t program and are just hired to copy paste files. “DevOps is a set of software development practices that combines software development and information technology operations to shorten the systems development life cycle while delivering features, fixes, and updates frequently in close alignment with bus…

Most of the devops (side question, is SRE technically devops?) people I work with are programmers who know a lot about test+build frameworks, CICD, cloud resource management, etc. I don't think it would be appropriate to call someone copy-pasting templates, manually adding VMs, etc. "devops"

> Most of the devops (side question, is SRE technically devops?)

In my experience a “good” SRE, devops engineer, or software engineer is difficult to distinguish in skills. It’s more about responsibilities. This is especially true of the folks I’ve met from FANG.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're depending on open source software then you also need to be able to fix the code in question. And do so in a way which the project would accept. Otherwise, your bug report may linger until the end of time.

Then hire for software engineering. Don't lie to candidates that it's a systems admin or devops role. It's pathetic employers keep demanding more skill and free work for the same pay.

>It's pathetic employers keep demanding more skill and free work for the same pay.

In my experience DevOps pays better than SE (and much better than sys admin) because it requires a diverse set of skills. DevOps in that context is not just a new term for sys admin.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then hire for software engineering. Don't lie to candidates that it's a systems admin or devops role. It's pathetic employers keep demanding more skill and free work for the same pay.

>It's pathetic employers keep demanding more skill and free work for the same pay. In my experience DevOps pays better than SE (and much better than sys admin) because it requires a diverse set of skills. DevOps in that context is not just a new term for sys admin.

I have yet to see DevOps roles that require "diverse set of skills" beyond sysadmin skills, very basic knowledge of at least one language such as Java, Go, or Python (occasionally only PowerShell if its a Microsoft shop) and either Terraform or Cloudformation for IAC. The pay delta between the two roles is less than you think (excluding SF/BA market, but that market is always an outlier).

DevOps is sysadmin with more scripting, more infrastructure as code, and more expectation that you're an underpaid SRE. It also seems like DevOps role demand more unpaid on call responsibilities, where this is usually not the case with traditional sysadmin roles (or it's spread across a much larger team, negating the pain). YMMV.

Disclaimer: 20+ years in tech, the majority in ops roles.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're depending on open source software then you also need to be able to fix the code in question. And do so in a way which the project would accept. Otherwise, your bug report may linger until the end of time.

a lot of SW out there are just plumbing code. Rarely you see dynamic programming/recursion algo. Most use standard library as the implementation is solid and kinks have been ironed out.

Sure but that's a discussion on the value of leetcode itself which I've not argued one way or another. I'm simply saying that IF a company (many do) assumes leetcode is a way of gauging SE talent then it'd make sense to use the same criteria for gauging SE talent in DevOps.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#37

Isn’t the point of DevOps that you’re a software engineer who happens to work on infrastructure automation code? If they wanted someone who only knows how to operate systems they would have called it “sysadmin.”

Yes, but a single dynamic programming exercise is not a great test for the sort of programming experience you want your devops engineer to have.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#38

Good DevOps engineers are software engineers that can also do infrastructure work. They should be able to code. Unfortunately, many are "cloud sysadmins", for lack of a better term.

_Good_ DevOps engineers are anyone on either side of the discipline spectrum who can work with the other side.

DevOps are teams, not people.

https://devops.com/is-devops-a-title/

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#39
post #31

Complaining about leetcode is unproductive. Leetcode is not even that hard, tons of material and key to the answer is on the internet. Another benefit is, its streamline job searching. You practice once and you can use the same skill to interview for many companies.

It doesn't matter whether it's hard or not, it's at best a mediocre tool to determine programming skills. Also, it leads to a spiral of becoming worse:

1. being able to solve LeetCode tasks doesn't mean you're a good developer

2. not being able to solve these tasks doesn't mean you're a bad developer. So we have a tool that has a certain (IMHO high) rate of false positives and false negatives.

3. people start realising that LeetCode is becoming a go-to tool for recruiters, so instead of studying to become better developers, they study to become better at solving LC exercises, which increases the rate of false positives

4. with developers becoming better at LC, the bar is set higher and higher (because people spend time learning LC), so people who do not study LC exercises become far behind those who do, which also increases rate of false negatives

5. repeat points 3. and 4. until mastering LC exercises becomes more important than being a good engineer

This is a ridiculous trend which in my opinion only emphasises how screwed up is hiring in our industry.

Re: I got asked LeetCode questions for a dev-ops systems engineering job today

#40

They can, it depends on the role. Not referring to you but I have never understood why DevOps at many companies can’t program and are just hired to copy paste files. “DevOps is a set of software development practices that combines software development and information technology operations to shorten the systems development life cycle while delivering features, fixes, and updates frequently in close alignment with bus…

Most of the devops (side question, is SRE technically devops?) people I work with are programmers who know a lot about test+build frameworks, CICD, cloud resource management, etc. I don't think it would be appropriate to call someone copy-pasting templates, manually adding VMs, etc. "devops"

SRE is a way of implementing devops. It's pretty broadly mentioned in the first pages of the SRE books that google put out.

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/sre-vs-devops-com...

Post reply on HN