Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

fev.al

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 675 posts

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#631

Post by cableshaft »

ramesh31 wrote: post #295
lkrubner wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Would love to talk about the dating app world. It's so funny how many founders come into it thinking their "revolutionary matching algorithm" or whatever is going to make the greatest dating app ever. Until you realize that the problem is human nature, and no one wants to be told who they should match with. People want a name, an age, and a face; that's it. And anything that gets in the way of that will lead to your…

And a location/distance, that seems to be pretty important most of the time, from what I can remember, but otherwise yeah.

We had one of those people as a client and thought his "special sauce" of Myers Briggs, some Neuroscience research test bullshit we had to build into the system and have people, and some bullshit matching algorithm based on astrological sign would be the next big thing. Of course it wasn't, but my boss was happy to take the guy's money to build it anyway.

The client actually told us that it would have ten million of users after three weeks of release, with basically no money spent on marketing. It did not. Nowhere close.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#632

Post by atraac »

aantix wrote: post #463
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?

Novel solutions aren't as helpful as you think. Pragmatic, simple, vanilla solutions are reliable. You won't create your own linked list library, you'll use one from the standard library. General runtime analysis can be helpful - but production, real-world benchmarks trump all theoretical performance values. Code changes - how do I make a change to a production system in a million line code base that has good test co…

> General runtime analysis can be helpful - but production, real-world benchmarks trump all theoretical performance values

This is what I always found funny. Most of the software development work these days is related to web apps. Optimizing that nested loop won't do anything if you have to wait 300ms on some shitty API to answer anyway. It literally doesn't matter, noone cares.

Related meme I saw on reddit some time ago where senior developer says 'haha nested for loop go brrrrr':

https://i.redd.it/lmrf72ko0ro41.png

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#634

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

nicoburns wrote: post #23
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I half agree with this. I don't like the idea that every developer has to have code on github. If they want to code for work and nothing more, then that's fine and shouldn't disqualify them from any jobs. We shouldn't expect people to spend years of employment building up a portfolio for the next time they're looking for a job. However, I don't see how looking at the code people write isn't informative. You can see m…

Depends on what they have on there though, my GitHub mostly has projects from ~2010 when I was a very different engineer to the one I am now (this was before my first dev job)

But commits are timestamped though? It's easy to see if a github profile is active or not, and which projects likely represent someones current level of skill.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#635

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

yieldcrv wrote: post #12
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I half agree with this. I don't like the idea that every developer has to have code on github. If they want to code for work and nothing more, then that's fine and shouldn't disqualify them from any jobs. We shouldn't expect people to spend years of employment building up a portfolio for the next time they're looking for a job. However, I don't see how looking at the code people write isn't informative. You can see m…

Of the people with code on github, a lot of that is forked projects with small contributions, and the rest is small convenience or learning projects that werent meant for scrutiny. If its curated its because they are making a performance that also has nothing to do with being with an employee before meeting you. Github presence is just a non signal. Thats the only point. We agree that if you have a different way to s…

Okay, so you've addressed profiles with low-quality code and curated portfolios; but what about normal people who just put their projects on the platform? Their profiles will be a good representation of how they generally do things.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#636

Post by sokoloff »

drugstorecowboy wrote: post #558
krisoft wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But.. why? Does that reflect anything close to the job they would be doing? Yes? Yes. Figuring out how to make a computer solve problems is very much the job of a software developer. They will only encounter harder and less well defined tasks in their actual job. If they can’t do this and you hire them that is like hiring an opera singer who is mute, or a baker who is deadly alergic to flour. > putting them on the…

I can certainly understand that there are unqualified people who apply, what I'm disputing is your assertion that there is a correlation between doing the contrived problems under unrealistic conditions and future job performance. It sounds like your goal is just to filter out the absolute worst of the worst, and I'm sure its effective at that, but I believe you might be filtering out more of the top end than you rea…

> It sounds like your goal is just to filter out the absolute worst of the worst

Indeed, this is a holy grail of the applicant funnel. If a tech-for-interviewing company comes up with a better way to remove the worst 50-ish% of applicants efficiently, they’ll have no worries about their future. (The overall applicant pool is significantly adversely skilled as compared to the have been or will be quickly hired pool.)

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#638

Post by iostream24 »

Jistern wrote: post #567
jxramos wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a fascinating idea. Get companies to accept some form of standardized testing and have it be transferable. That would greatly increase the motivation behind its studies I would presume.

I can't tell if you are being facetious or not. I hope you are being facetious. I really do. As many other comments have indicated right here on Hacker News, professional licenses are commonplace for occupations such as plumbers, electricians, doctors, lawyers, and even many types of engineers. I suppose that central governments (such as the US federal government) should offer licenses for myriad types of software en…

Nice rant. It’s full of logical holes, of course, as there’s no common definition of tech roles and their titles, let alone a common understanding of the included tasks.

There are React Boot Camp folks who can whip up a frontend in no time who are arguably more competent at this task than a PhD in Comp Sci, and there are PhDs in Comp Sci who never wrote a lick of code in their life.

Technology in software IS Political, and 30 years of development experience shows me various parallel worlds that are arguably better than our current one.

Someone who grew up coding and loves hacking as close to the bare metal as possible is worth more than a dozen of your certified software engineers.

Let me know when the world standardizes on a Comp “Sci” curriculum.

Actual computational science has very little to do with computers and software development, which is a thesis statement I will be happy to support if pressed. For now, I end my rant

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#639

Post by iostream24 »

visarga wrote: post #565
danaris wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you, like, read my second sentence at all? Whether you realize it or not, you're advocating for keeping people who aren't already mid-to-upper-middle-class (among others) out of these kinds of tech companies. Anything that's designed to make you work hard extra, outside of work to learn separate skills just to pass interviews is guaranteed to make it disproportionately harder for people who are, for whatever reas…

> designed to make you work hard extra, outside of work to learn separate skills just to pass interviews Ah, you're talking about those programming jobs that never require thinking about algorithms?

In no circumstances did I ever make algorithmic decisions in an informational vacuum and then cowboy code my way forward, or rather, one seeks to avoid the mistakes of one’s youth.

Search engine: read material about the heart of the problem from domain experts, try different approaches and then decide.

Leet Code exercises are a blight on our industry.

If you want a shibboleth just say so.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#640

Post by iostream24 »

blueflow wrote: post #186
bpicolo wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> replaced them with real engineers nice gatekeeping. Shame on them for working to get a job they want.

After seeing all the unreliable and buggy software, i think more gatekeeping in IT would probably be beneficial. You wouldn't let someone do surgery on you that hasn't been to medical school.

An actually relevant test metric might help.

You are just apologizing for fraternity hazing

Post reply on HN