In my experience most companies using leetcode thinks their shit don't stink. So i'll leave this where it is.
Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
81–90 of 675 posts
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#82The best interview we've used was sharing a simple but very not idiomatic Python file with working (but slow) code and tests at the bottom. The task was to refactor and speed it up. This allows seeing the actual thought process and some basic skills, while at the same time being something any good dev could do in 20min without much pressure.
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#83We keep seeing posts like these on HN/Reddit, yet companies keep using them. And companies like Faang (or is it Manga now??), whose engineers I would think would hang out on HN
So it either means:
1. HN's influence is even less than we thought-- even MANGA engineers /10x silicon valley types dont hang out here
2. Everyone agrees its a good idea, but no one cares. Like everyone agrees we should care about the environment etc
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#84I can relate so hard with the part which says it does not favour slow thinkers. I've faced this countless times - person at work asks me something, I reply "I'll think about it and get back to you", which inevitably leads to their disappointment.
I am okay with disappointing people, but it can be unnerving when that disappointment means I miss out on a good opportunity.
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#85Having taken some interviews myself I can see some value in having the interviewee do some small coding exercise when they do not have any personal projects to show. I think it can filter out some false positives of candidates that can talk well but can’t actually write code (you’d be surprised how many candidates can’t)
What surprises me most is the lack of flexibility in the process. If a candidate shows up with a broad portfolio I’d rather talk about that then doing some random coding problem. Yet our HR manager insists on the fixed program. This is worse when the candidate is interviewing for a senior role where I don’t really care. Then I am mostly interested in their past experiences and knowledge on how to build things that don’t fall apart after six months.
Again it is definitely process over people here… not sure if it is better in other places.
I would also say that these exercises are most effective when they are quite simple. They let you test ‘can this person write a function’. The complicated ones often filter more for people who have studied those type of problems. Harder problems != better coder. At least not for the projects I work on which are more integrating existing services than investing new novel highly efficient code.
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#86Don't get me wrong I hate LeetCode-style interviews as much as the next guy. In fact I really, really, really suck at them! Not sure if that says more about my ability then anything but c'est la vie In the defence of LeetCode-style questions, I do think they work, and very well may I add - with the caveat you have the throughput of candidate to make it work well? Their ability to filter out 'those who can't code' in…
There's an assumption you're making that these challenges only filter out a small amount of qualified candidates. I suspect the percentage is actually quite significant. In my experience it's usually bigger "looks good on a resume" companies that do these challenges, which suggests they're getting enough candidates in the funnel to be able to afford turning away a lot of more-than-qualified applicants.
I've failed more than my fair share of these challenges, but never (being subjective here) because I wasn't actually capable of (1) solving the problem or (2) doing the job. My take here is that I _may_ have been unqualified for these roles, but that the interview failed to actually uncover it, due to spending all the available time on low signal exercises.
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#87Just talk to the person, ask them about projects they’ve worked on, problems they’ve solved etc. you’ll learn far more about them that way than getting them to put on a dog and pony show at a whiteboard!
I have to say this is how I've always interviewed people - I tend to be optimistic and assume people don't lie about their skills and experiences. So when I've been asked to interview people I mostly want to talk about projects, hobbies, and general things about developing, debugging, and the process by which people solve problems.
I don't want to know if you can do specific things, if you can't you'll learn, but I do want to know if I'm gonna find it easy to get along with you, if you seem like an interesting person, and if I can stand being in a small room with you for 7 hours a day.
I suspect this is just another kind of bias, but I've had good results.
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#88Someone who builds a truly novel technology solution involving hundreds of hours of effort gets filtered out of an interview involving contrived scenarios. You may have built the next generation X, but given an array of strings and a fixed width, can you format the text such that each line has exactly maxWidth characters and is fully justified -- in the next 30 minutes? Maybe you should have cultivated that skillset…
> Someone who builds a truly novel technology solution involving hundreds of hours of effort
This person should already have enough of a reputation to get a job at many companies, if their work is public enough.
What do you suggest for the 99%+ other candidates?
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#89I interviewed hundreds of C++ developers as a freelance assessment interviewer. The most candidates I interviewed wanted to work in the automotive industry in Europe. Many candidates (like: maybe the half) are fancy talkers without any skill in writing code. I really don't know why they are applying for dev jobs. It is easy to filter out these persons with a very simple coding test. I agree with the article that 'lee…
Exactly. Give a simple coding task that the candidate does on their own time (but not one that's too complicated, it's rude to waste the time of people who aren't even working for you), and then, crucially, have them briefly explain their solution during the interview. The task can be so easy that reasonable solutions are just 10-50 lines of code – my experience has been that people's explanation of their own work very clearly tells you whether or not they're a decent coder.
Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code
#90Don't get me wrong I hate LeetCode-style interviews as much as the next guy. In fact I really, really, really suck at them! Not sure if that says more about my ability then anything but c'est la vie In the defence of LeetCode-style questions, I do think they work, and very well may I add - with the caveat you have the throughput of candidate to make it work well? Their ability to filter out 'those who can't code' in…
There's an assumption you're making that these challenges only filter out a small amount of qualified candidates. I suspect the percentage is actually quite significant. In my experience it's usually bigger "looks good on a resume" companies that do these challenges, which suggests they're getting enough candidates in the funnel to be able to afford turning away a lot of more-than-qualified applicants. I've failed mo…
Big companies also have the headache of standardizing across thousands of interviews. That said you can do that more with practical exercises (build this thing…) than leetcode