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Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

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Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#431

Post by foobiekr »

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…

The problem with this theory is that I have met a ton of engineers who really have a lot of their identity wrapped up in how well they did on leetcode interviews [mostly by memorizing enough of them to pattern match] and heap scorn on candidates who don't do well on them as if they are subhumans.

The ego and status jockeying appeal of leetcode is very, very high and a lot of engineers just eat it up.

I think discussions of this topic which ignore the fact that there is a substantial population in our industry who fall into this trap are basically flawed.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#432

Post by deltree7 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #426

Studies show that one of the most effective interviewing tools is a test for general mental ability: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-validity-and-utili... Now, IQ tests are of dubious legality, at least in the US, but algorithmic coding questions basically get you an IQ test crossed with a programming skill check: win-win. All the ire about how you don't actually invert binary trees or whatnot during your r…

Bingo! I like how all these arm-chair HNers who have never run a successful company or built a public-facing product used by millions suddenly are experts at how to build a successful company.

Yeah, you know how Search serves 4 Billion people or people created Chrome or gmail in their 20% free time?

Because they could leet code and not use Stack Overflow as a crutch.

Sure, not all companies need leet code. But someone who can leet code has demonstrated skills that has proven to be correlated with creating Trillion $$$ companies.

Now go back to developing your CRUD app used by 20 internal users (because they are forced to) and let companies who are successful continue to use their successful methods

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#433

Post by pcan77 »

nivenkos wrote: post #22

It's much better than the alternative and ideally only one part of the interview process. Ultimately the proof is in the pudding, I've had loads of candidates that could barely code and Leetcode-style problems are a great filter against that. Otherwise you risk just getting PM-style bullshitters as engineers, who talk persuasively about projects that other people actually implemented.

I really disagree here; I've been a successful engineer at a Fortune 500 company for a decade. I'm a front end engineer. I still have absolutely no idea why companies choose to test FE engineers with leetcode style questions (which I am terrible at). My job has almost NOTHING to do with leetcode, and yet it's a huge hurdle to go over for some unknown reason.

I'm a great engineer, I just suck at leetcode questions because...shocker! They have absolutely nothing to do with my day-to-day. It's similar to puzzles; I hate puzzles and doing puzzles/escape rooms/etc, but I'm a pretty smart guy.

Leetcode is merely a gatekeeping methodology that proves almost nothing and weeds out a lot of amazing engineers who aren't skilled at grinding leetcode or hate brain teaser shit.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#434

Post by masterof0 »

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…

I agree, on the startup side, the only "brilliant" player is the founder(s), and they just need people to pump code, do marketing, etc... non-stop, because "they believe on the mission". I don't like the Leetcode interviews either, but what can we do? I have had the other types of interviews (take home projects, trivia questions, code reviews, pair programming) and all of them suck as well. At least with leetcode you know if you "got it right", there is less subjectivity in the process. Also, assuming someone is less smart because do leetcode interviews is a bad take. All companies (not only startups) need obedient workers, and the interview method have very little to do with that. If you are a true rebel, would you work for somebody else?

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#435

Post by closeparen »

hiq wrote: post #88
Dowwie wrote: post #75

Someone 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?

>This person should already have enough of a reputation to get a job at many companies, if their work is public enough.

You can't just hire someone based on their reputation at a company of any maturity. That's a legal and HR nightmare. There has to be a process with a semblance of objectivity, and that process has to demonstrably apply to everyone equally, always.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#436

Post by foobiekr »

adregan wrote: post #302
jmyeet wrote: post #117

This is a tired topic at this point. The mistakes people make are: 1. An interview proces exists to fill a position. It doesn't exist to fairly assess an individual candidate. Candidates would like that. That's not the point. If there are 10 candidates and the employer fills the role successfully, they've achieved their goal even if someone great was filtered out; 2. FizzBuzz came about because many people talked a g…

A simple problem with constraints can be really fun. For example, implement FizzBuzz without using any looping constructs.

The variant of fizzbuzz that I use is "read and categorize a line at a time from stdin."

You'd be amazed how this one small change makes the discussion quite different.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#437

Post by byteware »

tru3_power wrote: post #323

As someone who just went through this (finished up loop at fb and google) - I can honestly say at first I HATED the idea of leetcoding/having to learn this stuff, but after a while I started actually learning the real concepts behind the problems and started looking at them like puzzles. I enjoy puzzles so this approach made these problems more approachable and engaging.

yes, most comments here treat leetcode problems only as a means to an offer, but I too find them quite stimulating

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#438

Post by ilc »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #415

Totally against using LeetCode for interviewing engineers. However, when asking around about why people who use it do so, I found out it does have one irrefutable advantage: it stops people who can't code at all. From an engineer's point of view, LeetCode is a complete waste of everyone's time because it measures things that aren't factors in successful engineering (as TFA says). Bu from the non-technical manager's p…

That's ok. There will be a prep school for the best. People will study to the test, and we'll have "cracking the association".

People will always study to the test. So it is essential that when you interview you test for what you ate looking for. This is why using 3x leetcode interviews is a bit silly.

Testing if someone can code is 100% reasonable. If a company wants to waive their coding test for me, I tell them they shouldn't and that they should NEVER assume someone can code.

Yes, that means your company needs to have questions, and interview design, that actually looks for what your company truly wants and desires. Amazingly, this CAN be done. Interview design is hard, but very possible,

But asking a EASY leetcode question is 100% reasonable.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#440

Post by NikolaNovak »

Dudeman112 wrote: post #286
NikolaNovak wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True Probationary period / uncertain employment is 1. Untenable for employees - of I have a mortgage or family or plans or obligations let alone a current job, taking this kind of risk is unacceptable 2. Untenable for companies - that's way too much investment. Companies do have probation periods formally but they are exceeeeedingly rarely invoked, for above reasons.

Might I introduce you to Europe? Works here. My org recently ditched a bad hire with it.

I think we'd need to share more detail (and fwiw, I'm half from europe and half from Canada :).

Certainly companies have probation periods. And on paper, that reality and what's proposed in previous post are similar.

But I think there's a massive real world difference between "Default stay hired" and "Default not stay hired".

Probation, as it has currently been implemented in most companies I've worked in, exists, is formal, can and has been used, but is an exception. It's used when there's a massive, unanticipated, egregious problem in performance.

What is sometimes proposed in these threads is effectively replacing long/multiple interviews, with a probation period. While such probation period may look similar or same on paper, I think it's a completely different approach: "We're sure of you (though possibly wrong) so we're hiring you" vs "We're not sure of you so let's hire you and see!". I for one would have only touched the latter with a 100ft pole maybe once in my life. Certainly, I imagine anybody with current job and monthly obligations, would be quite wary in taking a "we don't know so let's try it!" approach to hiring. No, let's figure it out first please :)

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