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Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

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Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#541

Post by fuzzythinker »

hereyougo wrote: post #534
jboy55 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's another collectively shared work experience that also created leetcode style interviews. That is dealing with someone who has a degree, can speak well of what it takes to code, but who cannot code to save their life. I have known more than a dozen such "engineers". That's the reason you code during an interview, I think the emphasis on optimal O(N) is just a set of engineers who don't believe it shoul…

Here you go # You have a music player that should be playing a 900 song list randomly. # You notice that you keep hearing a song being repeated during your drive and # you are curious if its truly random. from collections import Counter import random r = random.Random() songs = range(1,900) unplayed = set(songs) # You also keep hitting skip in the hopes a particular song comes up. # Write a piece of code that simulat…

Nice. I would add % of it played vs. median and how many std.deviations from it.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#542

Post by 0x20cowboy »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #141
bruce343434 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience Why would this be? Old brains not being as "flexible" to think up novel solutions?

You think LeetCode problems require novel solutions? It's the exact opposite: they're great for new grads who just spent 4+ years cramming for exams.

I was once asked "how do you sort a list of integers?" - the question was so ill defined that I thought it was a joke (in a database?, how long is the list?, in a flat file?, memory only?, on an embedded system?, a dataset in spark? ...).

Thinking, ok, this must be an ice breaking joke I responded, "I don't know, how _do you_ sort a list of integers?". In a condescending tone they responded "are you even a programmer?". At the time, I had been in the game for more than 10 years.

I am really not sure how one could successfully build several companies and have shipped several products without knowing "how to sort a list of integers".

Trying to find a good place to grow your career is difficult on many levels, but if you find leetcode questions silly, you might be too advanced for entry level jobs. ...and you probably don't want to work there.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#543

Post by serial_dev »

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…

> why do startups do leetcode too?

A point that I didn't see yet made. The truth is that lots (though of course not all) startup companies just have no idea what they are doing.

I had to deal with the complexities that imagined possible future scalability issues introduced into our stack when the whole customer base could be served by a raspberry pi, and it happened in multiple companies.

And it is not just infrastructure, but also code. I have to follow the twisted clean architecture rules and write tons of boilerplate code (that could make sense on the backend for a complex system) for a mobile app that is basically just a skin over a graphql API (basically no business logic on the client).

The same happens when hiring: we need top talent like FAANG companies do (but we can't pay for it), because we are awesome, where in reality anyone with a sceptical, product-focused mindset and a "get things done" attitude would do.

In my opinion this happens because we don't want to admit that our startups will likely not need the scalability for years, we won't need to follow fancy architecture patterns because our app is simple, and we could do well with developers who don't have top computer science skills.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#545

Post by scottlamb »

snickerer wrote: post #68

I 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…

> I agree with the article that 'leetcode' tests (find that complicated algorithm in 30 minutes while I am staring at you) are bad. But I think coding tests are good! Give the candidate just a really simple coding task with stuff they normally do every day. Create and delete object, fill arrays, iterate over arrays, and so on. 50% of the candidates will fail! The rest are OK engineers.

Do the candidates know that ahead of time?

Your approach seems similar to what I've done as a coding interviewer and to what my interviewers did when I last interviewed (at Google back in 2007). Assess people's coding with something relatively simple. Make sure they can gather requirements, describe why they chose this approach instead of a couple alternatives, and (if they make a mistake) that they can diagnose it if you describe the symptoms. If you have extra time, have them review some bad code. See if they spot the problems and how they gently help the author understand/fix them. (They also should be tested on system design, but that's a whole other interview slot.)

I'm studying to be a coding interviewee for the first time in 15 years. This process is stressful in part because they just tell you coding on hackerrank/leetcode/coderpad, which is so broad. If the problem they pick is as you describe, I should be fine. If it's for example some advanced dynamic programming problem...well, those haven't come up for me in the last 17 years, so I'm probably in trouble. It's a perfectly valid area of computer science, but it's not one that matches my experience or what I'd likely be doing if accepted. I'm not excited about taking the time to prepare for that, but I also don't want to make a fool of myself if they do. They probably won't pick this area...and if they do, it's probably a bad sign about the company or my understanding of the role...but the possibility is stressful nonetheless.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#546

Post by akomtu »

lkrubner wrote: post #249
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 idea that companies are using leetcode tests for rational reasons goes against everything I've seen and experienced or read about. What I have seen, working at startups for more than 20 years, is irrational, self-destructive behavior, over and over and over again. I've worked with many entrepreneurs who have a few million dollars in the bank, and they have a great idea, but they self-destruct due to two big reaso…

Some relevant offtopic. Ego and fear are also described in the eastern philosophy as the two biggest obstacles on your way. Ego is the illusion of separateness, the great seed of all human evils, that takes a monumental effort to get rid of. Next comes the fear of making the next step, "taking on more responsibility" as we would say here, because that new responsibility feels so overwhelming. Those who fail to make the leap of faith (or "to challenge themselves" in corpspeak) fall, and have to climb up again.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#547

Post by xtracto »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #173
throwaddzuzxd wrote: post #96

In my team we do technical interviews in three steps: - an algorithmic challenge. It's related to what we do day to day. I work in domain names so we ask to parse a domain name. There are oddities with domain names so we check multiple things: does the candidate know what basic string manipulation functions exist? do they ask questions to get more info? how do they react when we give additional info that break the co…

In my old job we used to have combined problems for job interviews. First were some easy leetcode, little Big O, all that. But then it got tricky, the problem turned into a "design" part were you could see how the applicant would setup a new system, wether s/he would overdo complexity etc. Finally we had tests for communication skills. For a unprecise formulated requirement, would the applicant ask us or would s/he o…

The problem with the "easy leetcode" problems is that a lot of them are "gotcha" type of problems: you either know the formula/puzzle-logic/solving-strategy or you'll fail.

I remember asking the typical "traverse an array in spiral" or "traverse this array in diagonals" a long time ago. The problem is that, if the candidate solved it, I just knew they knew how to play with array indexes. And if they didn't do it, I just knew that they got nervous and were not good using indexed arrays... it didn't give me anything.

That's why FizzBuzz is good: it has no false negatives. If a developer candidate can't do it, it means thay cannot code.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#548

Post by charles_f »

maxfurman wrote: post #494

On the flip side, I'm about to start interviewing some engineering candidates, and I have no idea what to do. I've been in the field for 8+ years now but interviewing for technical positions is hard and I've never seen a company really get it right. How do you have high standards without a ton of false negatives? How do you avoid reductive coding exercises without selecting for charming incompetence? Genuinely asking…

Would advise to read the end of the post regarding that.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#549

Post by throwaway0x7E6 »

that's an engineer's opinion about things beyond his understanding

75% of fresh grads are below mediocre, to put it very mildly. 50% of candidates with a seemingly OK employment record or portfolio are too.

leetcode filters them out right away. that's the purpose it serves. it's not there to get you good candidates, it's there to make sure that you only spend time interviewing potentially good candidates.

I would agree that it would be ideal to use coding challenges suited for the job you're hiring for, but that would take a lot more time and effort to make and review

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#550

Post by charles_f »

kmod wrote: post #474

The issue I have with these arguments is that they assume that just because a certain thing has flaws there must be a better solution. What if predicting long-term effectiveness using a limited amount of time is inherently approximate at best? I'm sure interviewing can be improved, but I think it's worth remembering that we are one of the few industries that actually tries to do skills-based interviewing. When people…

I would suggest reading the end of the article related to that.
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