> What’s your suggested alternative?
In my experience, any alternative to leetcode provides a better signal-to-noise ratio. You are better off asking trivia questions.
Additionally, this is the common narrative among leetcode advocates - "If no leetcode, then what?" As a hiring manager, you think harder and do better, that's what.
> Please remember that while some of us would do well and prefer some live pair programming or debugging sessions, it stresses the hell out of some folks and penalizes them unfairly.
So does leetcode. And a candidate that is truly a good fit for the role would be more at ease with the interview than if they saw a leetcode question they haven't seen before.
> Take home tests penalizes people with families and other responsibilities...
So does studying for leetcode for hours.
> ...and probably has a racial bias as well in countries where different races have different societal loads.
Share some sources before making a claim this ridiculous.
> In the end, even if these coding challenges might not reflect the actual work you do, they might still be predictive of success in the job, as much as any other method can be when we look for unbiased markers.
In my 6-ish years of experience, this is false. I have actually tested this theory in practice, and through my anecdotal experience, leetcode is a poor signal for job performance.
I can usually usually accurately screen a candidate for success in about 45 mins. And, unlike leetcode, you can't pretend like you haven't seen the question before, bc I can push the candidate to their limit, which is where you will find hire / no-hire signals. I love talking about this stuff, but I find that my peers engineering peers do not give a shit and would prefer to stay in leetcode hell.