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Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

leetcodetherapy.com

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Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#51

Post by EvilEy3 »

onion2k wrote: post #29
cebert wrote: post #10

I wonder ten years from now how common LeetCode like interviews are. These types of interviews favor those who have the luxury of ample time to prep for difficult interviews and aren’t representative of most daily working environments. This process fails to consider candidates that would be good fits. When I help with interviews, I place much more values on communication skills, teamwork, mentorship, and a general pa…

These types of interviews favor those who have the luxury of ample time to prep for difficult interviews... Interviews that test for anything that isn't directly related to the job the candidate will be doing are essentially codified discrimination - the expectation that someone will have a skill or significant knowledge outside of the job itself is effectively a way to filter out candidates based on arbitrary criter…

Nobody obliged to give you work. They gave you a task and you couldn't solve it, fair and square.

I can stretch your logic even further that giving BE task to FE person is a discrimination because they don't have luxury to work on BE. Why do we discriminate against QA people who don't have luxury to work on dev jobs? Why do we discriminate against people who don't work as developers at all?

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#52

Post by beforeolives »

01100011 wrote: post #43
ipnon wrote: post #2

After crashing and burning the startup rodeo, I gave up. I live off my savings, dabble in crypto for some income, and work on my own software to sell. I've never been happier. Silicon Valley didn't seem to want me anyway.

Nothing wrong with that. SiValley is fucking toxic and I'd leave in a second if I could afford to(mid-life divorce... long story). Leave SiValley for the folks that need to be there(for ego, for money, to satisfy the lofty goals instilled by their society/family/etc). You'll lead a much more fulfilling life in a normal town with your friends and family around you.

> You'll lead a much more fulfilling life in a normal town with your friends and family around you.

This is a false dichotomy. Leaving SV has nothing to do with your friends and family situation. So you can leave SV and be completely alone, or bored, or stuck in a toxic community. And you can also have family and friends in SV.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#53

Post by nirui »

sirpunch wrote: post #45
nirui wrote: post #13

> We don't realize something important - Leetcode is a competitive programming platform at its core, not an interview platform. Yet, we fall into the trap of thinking it's an educational website. There is a word circling China's Internet call "内卷", which can be translated directly to Involution, but on the ground it actually means "Over competition" or "Doing zero-sum competition". People trying to climb over the oth…

Do you know about the 1point3acrea forum for LeetCode-based interview preparation. I was told by a friend to check it out as they have an extensive set of tips, tricks and general suggestions. Their forums and posts seem to be mostly in Mandarin and Google translate doesn't take you far. So I was hoping to get some Chinese tech person's opinion on 1p3a.

Sorry, couldn't help you there. The website is titled "北美最有影响力的华人社区 (The most influential Chinese (online) community in South America)", which is little less than half-earth away from me, so..

However, if an interview is really LeetCode-based, I'd say it's a fair game for the interviewee to do some preparation. In my opinion, the best kind of interview is based on real production needs, the interview question (regardless whether or not it's came from LeetCode) should reflect that.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#54

Post by [deleted] »

sirpunch wrote: post #45
nirui wrote: post #13

> We don't realize something important - Leetcode is a competitive programming platform at its core, not an interview platform. Yet, we fall into the trap of thinking it's an educational website. There is a word circling China's Internet call "内卷", which can be translated directly to Involution, but on the ground it actually means "Over competition" or "Doing zero-sum competition". People trying to climb over the oth…

Do you know about the 1point3acrea forum for LeetCode-based interview preparation. I was told by a friend to check it out as they have an extensive set of tips, tricks and general suggestions. Their forums and posts seem to be mostly in Mandarin and Google translate doesn't take you far. So I was hoping to get some Chinese tech person's opinion on 1p3a.

[deleted]

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#55

Post by osti »

sirpunch wrote: post #45
nirui wrote: post #13

> We don't realize something important - Leetcode is a competitive programming platform at its core, not an interview platform. Yet, we fall into the trap of thinking it's an educational website. There is a word circling China's Internet call "内卷", which can be translated directly to Involution, but on the ground it actually means "Over competition" or "Doing zero-sum competition". People trying to climb over the oth…

Do you know about the 1point3acrea forum for LeetCode-based interview preparation. I was told by a friend to check it out as they have an extensive set of tips, tricks and general suggestions. Their forums and posts seem to be mostly in Mandarin and Google translate doesn't take you far. So I was hoping to get some Chinese tech person's opinion on 1p3a.

If you don't possess advanced understanding of Chinese, then don't even think about trying to read it. I came to Canada in my teens and I often have trouble understanding. The forum rules dictate that you write cryptically. But it is incredibly useful if you understand it imo, especially the interview experiences. That's why they can charge like 80usd per month for VIP access..

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#56

Post by alexf95 »

beforeolives wrote: post #42

I'm going through this now and it isn't leetcode anxiety, it's interview anxiety. If you haven't had that many great opportunities in your career, getting a FAANG interview feels like your one shot. And yes, in your rational mind you understand that it's just a job and you already have one so you aren't desperate, there are many other companies too, and there will probably be other chances to interview at the same co…

Fully agree. If there is any material available to prepare for the interview I will try to fully use it just to calm my mind about the interview itself. Because imagining myself in the interview and not knowing the answer to the one question asked that I could have prepared makes me do it.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#57

Post by redis_mlc »

lentil_soup wrote: post #32
jitl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We ask questions similar to the work you'd actually do at Notion; see our interview guide here: https://www.notion.so/Guide-to-Engineering-Interviews-63876c... . Looking at a smattering of leetcode mediums, I don't understand how someone being able to return "the elements of a 2d matrix in spiral order" ( https://leetcode.com/problems/spiral-matrix/ ) or use Kadane's algortith to solve "k-concatenation max sum" ( htt…

I read the guide to engineering interviews you posted, but I am curious about the difference between your "Technical Screen" and leetcode type questions. Having to solve a problem while someone is watching and having to talk while you do it sounds similar to the FAANG style. Maybe I'm missing something?

LeetCode is a problem that took a famous computer scientist a month to write a paper about, but you have 30 minutes in a proprietary web app to either remember or re-invent it, and pass a test suite.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#58

Post by jitl »

01100011 wrote: post #41
pmiller2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just gonna glom on to this for visibility, but I'd like to say I wish there was a good list of companies that don't do leetcode-style interviews. Frankly, I'm sick of leetcode, and I feel like it takes a lot of fun out of working in tech to have to grind this skill that's completely unrelated to any sort of real work. (Rant mode off) Anybody know of such a list? Edit: I should add that I'd really like to be point…

Do you want companies that don't do leetcode, or companies that don't do leetcode yet pay you a FANG salary? The list of companies that don't do leetcode are probably quite long, but you're looking at an average salary in an average town(i.e. $120-180k/year salary with decent benefits and meager stock opportunities). There's nothing wrong with that. I'd certainly go that route if I could afford to. If you're looking…

Android, iOS, and front-end interview tracks tend to be more “hands on” even at companies that use leetcode/algo questions for full stack or backend roles. Airbnb pays very competitively (compare to Google and Facebook https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Airbnb/Google/Facebook) and is lighter on the algo stuff for the specialties I mentioned.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#59

Post by pmiller2 »

01100011 wrote: post #41
pmiller2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just gonna glom on to this for visibility, but I'd like to say I wish there was a good list of companies that don't do leetcode-style interviews. Frankly, I'm sick of leetcode, and I feel like it takes a lot of fun out of working in tech to have to grind this skill that's completely unrelated to any sort of real work. (Rant mode off) Anybody know of such a list? Edit: I should add that I'd really like to be point…

Do you want companies that don't do leetcode, or companies that don't do leetcode yet pay you a FANG salary? The list of companies that don't do leetcode are probably quite long, but you're looking at an average salary in an average town(i.e. $120-180k/year salary with decent benefits and meager stock opportunities). There's nothing wrong with that. I'd certainly go that route if I could afford to. If you're looking…

I'm totally fine going the "average" route. At my last company, I was making around $225k TC, and that worked just fine for me. At that level, I'm making enough money put back a considerable amount for savings and investment, while not living in a tiny hovel, and even enjoying an expensive hobby or two. My ideal job would probably be the lowest stress job that I could make at least that much, to be honest.

But, of course, it's just me that I'm looking out for here. I don't have a wife and family to provide for. I'm sure I'd be writing a different comment if I did.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#60

Post by pmiller2 »

jitl wrote: post #58
01100011 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want companies that don't do leetcode, or companies that don't do leetcode yet pay you a FANG salary? The list of companies that don't do leetcode are probably quite long, but you're looking at an average salary in an average town(i.e. $120-180k/year salary with decent benefits and meager stock opportunities). There's nothing wrong with that. I'd certainly go that route if I could afford to. If you're looking…

Android, iOS, and front-end interview tracks tend to be more “hands on” even at companies that use leetcode/algo questions for full stack or backend roles. Airbnb pays very competitively (compare to Google and Facebook https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Airbnb/Google/Facebook ) and is lighter on the algo stuff for the specialties I mentioned.

That would be fabulous if I knew the least little bit about any of those things. :-) I've done a lot of backend and data engineering. Occasionally that's enough to get me considered for a full stack role, but not often, and that's the furthest out of my lane I've been.
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