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I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

nelson.cloud

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Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#151

Post by willtemperley »

was_in_amazon wrote: post #82
willtemperley wrote: post #68

I'm happy that Amazon have a horrible leetcode style interview practice. In my interview I had to design an algorithm to detect certain combinations of fruit and veg bought from Amazon fresh, which would trigger fruit-machine style payouts. If I hadn't said "f this" and did something that actually interests me, I would probably have a huge mortgage sitting in rainy ol Blighty designing user hostile experiences like P…

Ex Amazon here. I never heard of leetcode style interviews at Amazon.

I would also be a lot richer if I was able to create BS of this magnitude but I can't. Here's the practice test they gave me:

https://www.hackerrank.com/test/63ek10mhil5/60d306ab105867d8...

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#152

Post by kristopolous »

CarpaDorada wrote: post #138
kristopolous wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an entire industry of bootcamps built on the premise of teaching you how to pass this exact test in like 6 weeks. And because they ask pretty irrelevant questions, the 6 weeker will do better then the recent Stanford PhD who has been studying a specific problem for 5 years or the multimillionaire who spent the past 10 years building and selling successful software companies. Those people will fail and your 6…

Well said, like IQ tests, if you train for it you're better at it, but it the meaning of the results is dubious. Recently I failed the first round of a fintech analyst position because I didn't complete the 9 undergrad (or high-school, in certain talented schools) math problems (I have a math PhD) in the 1 hour time frame. In retrospect, I should've cheated using computer/online assistance, and my true failure was my…

If you want to work, you just need to find the right job.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#153

Post by badgersnake »

They are just bad and it’s an indication of laziness in the team, or that the organisation is hiring centrally and you could end up doing anything. Both of these are negatives imho. Developing a relevant technical interview aligned with what the team does is a project in itself and takes significant time to do and keep up to date. People don’t want to invest the time, but from experience it’s definitely worth it.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#154

Post by worthless-trash »

koolba wrote: post #131
369548684892826 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fact that there is a standardized test in my mind does the opposite and makes the process much fairer The problem isn't standardized tests, it's that leetcode questions are about having the time to have learnt the answer beforehand, rather than raw ability for problem solving.

> The problem isn't standardized tests, it's that leetcode questions are about having the time to have learnt the answer beforehand, rather than raw ability for problem solving. This sounds like you want to penalize students who studied for the exams. Or at least not reward them. Like all interview formats, it’s a proxy for understanding if the prospect would be able to get the work done and be a good fit with the re…

> This sounds like you want to penalize students who studied for the exams. Or at least not reward them.

s/exams/interview/g

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#155

Post by surfingdino »

gigatexal wrote: post #111

I don’t think anyone is saying in a traditional SWE role data structures and algorithms aren’t useful things to have some me amount of mastery about (higher levels required for higher levels of seniority maybe)… but it’s just hilarious and also sad that we’ve, as an industry, not been able to move away from these logic puzzles disguised as programming tasks that ostensibly should mimic a typical task but serve only t…

Our industry doesn't value experience. I have 20+ years of experience but every time I apply for a new role I am being treated like a 19-year old. I was once give a travelling salesman problem by a company that needed a bunch of APIs implemented in Flask. I am a contractor so mostly do 12-month engagements with different clients and I'd say I have more practical experience designing and delivering software, but it doesn't matter to the potential clients, because they cannot judge experience from the past work history. So everyone gets the same treatment and you have software written by recent graduates (or drop-outs) with no industry experience.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#156

Post by weatherlite »

dinobones wrote: post #6

Leetcode style interviews probably serve two functions: 1) A way to suppress wages and job mobility for SWE. Who wants to switch jobs when it means studying for a month or two? Also, if you get unlucky and some try hard drops an atomic LC hard bomb on you now you have an entire company you can no longer apply to for a year. 2) A way to mask bias in the process while claiming that it’s a fair process because everyone…

> if you get unlucky and some try hard drops an atomic LC hard bomb on you now you have an entire company you can no longer apply to for a year.

I don't think this is an issue of bad luck, its quite probably to get difficult interviews especially if you're applying to the popular names.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#157

Post by delegate »

I've interviewed lots of developers and recommended 'hire' to about 15 people in the last several years and not once did we get it wrong.

All it takes is a short problem to solve at home, which can be easily googled and one hour architecture interview, where we discuss the technical architecture of a hypothetical 'real world' service.

It takes about 20 minutes to determine if the candidate has the experience with the technologies listed in the resume. Little experience is not necessarily a show stopper.

True that the language we hire for (Clojure) filters out a lot of people ahead of time, but knowing the language is not exactly what I look for..

What I look for is 'passion' - does the candidate love programming and can the candidate articulate technical issues with ease.

The other question I try to answer - will the candidate enjoy working in our team and will we enjoy working with him/her.

Smart people will shine in a certain way, even if they bomb specific questions - they have an opinion, they try, they ask the right questions.

I'd be sad if we missed on some of the people in our team because of automated (inhuman) puzzle interviews.

We're not looking for a problem solving machine, we're looking for a partner to create something great together, someone who shares our passion for hacking and someone who we'd love to work with.

I share TFA's opinion that leetcode-style interviews are not the way to go and I hope the industry comes back around and focuses on the human side more.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#158

Post by upmind »

was_in_amazon wrote: post #82
willtemperley wrote: post #68

I'm happy that Amazon have a horrible leetcode style interview practice. In my interview I had to design an algorithm to detect certain combinations of fruit and veg bought from Amazon fresh, which would trigger fruit-machine style payouts. If I hadn't said "f this" and did something that actually interests me, I would probably have a huge mortgage sitting in rainy ol Blighty designing user hostile experiences like P…

Ex Amazon here. I never heard of leetcode style interviews at Amazon.

As someone who's interviewed there and received offer (though for internship), for entry positions, internships + their lowest level of engineer (don't recall the name), I can confidently tell you they mainly use leetcode with some Amazon principle questions too

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#159

Post by fHr »

yeah classic FAANG bs from consultancy leaders who can not solve 1 leetcode problem and don't @ me with they don't need to because they can't make business decisions either even with fancy economy degrees and then layoff half the staff. If your CEO was not a techie the company is doomed anyway. So FAANG pushes leetcoding and everyone does it now, I just learned the 100 most common for interviews by heart and dabbled into 1000 leetcode problem. Absolutely only need to put in work and has 0 skill tbh it reminds me when I had vocabulary tests in school for other languages, just learn it by heart and score high mark. No skill of the daily business life involved at all. Landed a job that way. Improvise, adapt, overcome.
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