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Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

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Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#401

Post by adsfoiu1 »

biztos wrote: post #358
s17n wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More than obedience, it probably is the aspect that they're smart and determined to succeed. Yup that's what it's about! The problem with trying to test how good you are at the job is that you simply can't do it in a 1 hour (or even a 1 day) interview. You can however assess how smart somebody is, which is definitely correlated to job performance. It's also connected to growth potential - even if it were somehow po…

> You can however assess how smart somebody is Are you saying the Leetcode-style interview assesses how smart someone is?

Not OP, and I don't think it directly indicates how smart you are, but it does show you are at or above some smartness threshold (i.e. smart enough to get the answer).

If you don't get the answer, you might still be above that smartness threshold, but didn't get it for some other reason (didn't have time to study, didn't sleep enough the night before, interview anxiety, etc.).

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#402

Post by rask17 »

yolo69420 wrote: post #370
brhsagain wrote: post #148

All of these supposed "flaws" of leetcode are by design. Big companies want people who are smart enough to do the work, but obedient enough to put up with all the bullshit that comes with working at a big company. What person better matches that than someone who's able and willing to study for and pass a tech version of the SAT? Every anti-leetcode article I read is some version of "leetcode is bad because it measure…

this post is way too optimistic. you're implying the people making the decision that leetcode tests are used are competent enough to know they suck but still use them for the soft-factors you mention. I would bet essentially all of my money that instead they're simply incompetent and actually think these tests are good at testing ability. that being said, everybody talks about like leetcode tests for a week straight…

Agree, from my experience this is largely a factor of requesting developers not used to interviewing to suddenly have an interview, often with little guidance either from their manager or hiring team. With nothing else, they have to rely on their own experience on how they were interviewed, with leet code, and so they continue the cycle.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#403

Post by weatherlite »

dangus wrote: post #382
yolo69420 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this post is way too optimistic. you're implying the people making the decision that leetcode tests are used are competent enough to know they suck but still use them for the soft-factors you mention. I would bet essentially all of my money that instead they're simply incompetent and actually think these tests are good at testing ability. that being said, everybody talks about like leetcode tests for a week straight…

I can boil this incompetence you describe down even further: employers and their employees don’t want to spend time making their own interview challenges. It’s actually pretty hard and time consuming to come up with a mock scenario and evaluate it, especially when you also have your regular work to do. Leetcode is seen as good enough and all the effort is on the interviewee. The current employees don’t see the pain a…

> It’s actually pretty hard and time consuming to come up with a mock scenario and evaluate it

That's a hard problem for some startup, not for FAANGs. They could do hundreds of those and keep switching them quite easily.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#404

Post by twawaaay »

game_the0ry wrote: post #389
twawaaay wrote: post #93

As an interviewer I can tell you are absolutely missing the point. Why would I ever want to hire a developer without seeing them perform? And since being able to program a small piece of code to specification is such a basic, important part of development, why would it be bad for me to verify if you can do it? If your friends are so good developers, why would they have a problem reasoning around a relatively simple,…

> As an interviewer I can tell you are absolutely missing the point. As an interviewee, I would not want to work with you. You lack full conviction in your beliefs - you literally had to create a throw away account bc you knew you were going to get downvoted.

I've dropped the compulsion to make everybody like me a long time ago.

Actually, this is by design. See, the best outcome is when people who would not be able to work together productively find it before signing the contract.

You may not see it this way, but I make a favour to every single interviewee like you by not wasting your time (or mine) on a fruitless endeavour.

You don't like doing leetcode? I am completely fine about it. We live in a free world and fortunately for you there is no shortage of places that hire people who SAY they can program.

I just want to warn you. Your coworkers will also be the ones that passed similar sieve. Your future boss might be one of them. I have worked for one or two places which do not check for candidates ability to program and these tend to be miserable places. Not saying all of them, but still. My first boss was a "Senior Dev" who literally did not know how to write a loop, and that was over 20 years ago. Since then I refused working for couple of places based on their lacking hiring process and I have never regretted my decision. I am not ashamed of my programming skills and I am happy to prove to any reasonable interviewer on demand and comfortable in knowing that I will be working with other people who can do the same.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#405

Post by weatherlite »

s17n wrote: post #239
brandall10 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every unicorny startup I've interviewed w/ that had a standard big-tech interview loop (1 LC style screener + final w/ 2-3 rounds of LC + 1 system design) was chock full of ex-big tech engineers and managers, replete with stories about wanting a faster paced / dynamic environment. So yes, that absolutely is who they are recruiting. It probably comes down to no more than believing big tech companies have the very best…

> More than obedience, it probably is the aspect that they're smart and determined to succeed. Yup that's what it's about! The problem with trying to test how good you are at the job is that you simply can't do it in a 1 hour (or even a 1 day) interview. You can however assess how smart somebody is, which is definitely correlated to job performance. It's also connected to growth potential - even if it were somehow po…

> You can however assess how smart somebody is

Why not just give candidates a standard IQ test then? They are probably more reliable than Leetcode...

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#406

Post by 8ytecoder »

dangus wrote: post #382
yolo69420 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this post is way too optimistic. you're implying the people making the decision that leetcode tests are used are competent enough to know they suck but still use them for the soft-factors you mention. I would bet essentially all of my money that instead they're simply incompetent and actually think these tests are good at testing ability. that being said, everybody talks about like leetcode tests for a week straight…

I can boil this incompetence you describe down even further: employers and their employees don’t want to spend time making their own interview challenges. It’s actually pretty hard and time consuming to come up with a mock scenario and evaluate it, especially when you also have your regular work to do. Leetcode is seen as good enough and all the effort is on the interviewee. The current employees don’t see the pain a…

May be that’s where the problem is. Interviewing skills should be part of the responsibility. There could be a committee that can set and evaluate the process and questions. However, this will hurt the ego of a typical engineer so much. No one likes to be told what questions they can ask. Everyone likes to believe they are good interviewers, it’s just that they “hate interviewing”.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#408

Post by cadr »

dekhn wrote: post #397
cadr wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share what kind of things these are that give far more signal?

To be honest? every programmer needs to be able to pass FizzBuzz. Beyond that, I add some more basic work around byte representations of data (I have 4 symbols... how many bits do I need to encode a symbol?). I will typpically also include one major bug in a piece of code and ask the user to identify it (with hints). I once interviewed a guy- a CTO at a biotech- and he wouldn't answer the question "I have a million D…

I agree liking to ask simpler stuff first. But what about this more complicated stuff? My problem is that when we talk about stuff having more "signal" - how are we determining if those questions are giving us more signal?

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#409

Post by lubesGordi »

The hubris of interviewing companies is just unreal. Someone can talk until they're blue in the face about the problems they've solved and things they've built, but no, I'm not going to believe any of it until I see that, what, they can traverse a binary tree post order? Give me a fucking break.
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