I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#181

Post by weatherlite » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:00 AM UTC

apples_oranges wrote: post #38

A friend once in the middle of a technical interview stopped speaking, stood up and went out. They ran after him, "what's wrong, you're doing fine!" and he told them it depresses him too much and he's not interested anymore. Sad, given that this is a fun profession for most of us (I assume)

Done a similar thing in a Zoom interview. I had a horrible hard Leetcode question, was completely stuck and was getting nowhere (neither did the interviewers seemed keen on helping me out). I told them hey thanks this isn't my day I want to quit the interview - at this point they really tried hard to make me stay for the rest of the time. I think if a candidate wants out - you should let him.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#182

Post by fifilura » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:02 AM UTC

369548684892826 wrote: post #56

emodendroket wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure anyone determined to do so can act unfairly regardless of what process is in place, but the fact that there is a standardized test in my mind does the opposite and makes the process much fairer. Assuming a fair-minded interviewer, the process gives a chance to a candidate whose resume may have less vaunted names on it to demonstrate their skill. I'm quite sure that I'd never have had some of the opportunitie…

> 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.

Any advanced topic requires struggling through a big set of "special cases" to master.

This is how I learned mathematics for example.

After you have learnt enough of the special cases (trees) you start to be able to connect them and see their relation (the forest).

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#183

Post by raverbashing » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:05 AM UTC

Wilya wrote: post #54

fvdessen wrote: post #9

The unfortunate reality is that If you don't do this you'll hire people who can't program

It depends how it is done. I used to think the same way, and I would never hire someone without having seen them program live. But having experienced leetcode-style interviews on the candidate side, it's clear to me that they are no longer about figuring out and coding a solution on the spot. Interviewers expected a solution FAST, and to match that you need to have studied and learned the answer beforehand.

> Interviewers expected a solution FAST, and to match that you need to have studied and learned the answer beforehand.

Yeah this is the real BS behind the tests. Good interviewers help you manage and try to find a solution. Not just "answer is binary tree"

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#184

Post by rckt » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:05 AM UTC

A good interview is an absolutely rare thing. I can't name the chances, but throughout one's career it's going to be close to amount of jobs one's going to land. More likely less than that number.

From my experience you can say it's going to be good or bad right from the start. 5 minutes into an interview and you can already see where's it's going to end.

I don't understand when companies try to give test assignments to senior devs. Even if your GitHub or whatever profile is not rich with projects you can evaluate person's professional level during the conversation.

And I also hate stupid riddles during the interviews. But there was an interesting case. I got a couple of verbal puzzles that I should have solved right at that time and I failed. But I got the job anyway. So I guess if people in the company are common sense driven it helps to choose hiring strategies that work for both sides.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#185

Post by piva00 » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:06 AM UTC

sjaak wrote: post #124

ownagefool wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the problem is the format, i.e. a 30-50 minute interview on simple coding with DS&A problems, but the escalation. The reality is, fizz buzz got us 75% of the way there. It turns out when pressed, a lot of people can't write code. Yes, there's false positives, but there's also people brute focing their way through via copy & paste. This doesn't manifest as a person who can't do any task, just as a person…

I've also used FizzBuzz at several companies, and the insane amount of people it filters out continues to boggle my mind.

Same experience, used FizzBuzz at many places and always got surprised by the amount of people it can filter. The best interview process I've ever ran at a company consisted of a basic FizzBuzz for about 15-30 min followed by a pairing session no longer than 1h30m on a problem that could get as tricky as we wanted to assess their skill level.

We would both test the basics as well as go through with the candidate on how they think, how they collaborate, help them out if we felt nervousness was impacting them showing their skills, and in the end got a much better grasp on how skilled they were than if we were looking at Github repos or giving DS&A trivias to solve.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#186

Post by koliber » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:06 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #80

koliber wrote: post #66

I've interviewed developer candidates who seemed to know a lot of theory, but when it came to write some code, they failed miserably. They could not implement fizz-buzz. Senior Java developers who could not import HashMap without looking it up. It's kind of like math. If you need to multiply 562 * 1041, you should use a calculator. If you need to reach for a calculator to tell me how much 3 * 7 is, I will doubt that…

> Senior Java developers who could not import HashMap without looking it up. Eclipse does not without me having to even look at it. IntelliJ does the same. In what situation these people had to import it by hand? They had no ide available or what?

No IDE, specifically to test basic ability. We use a web-based shared editor, that has syntax highlighting, and auto-tabbing, but specifically no auto-complete nor auto-import. Sometimes, it's just pseudo-coding, either in a conversation, or on a whiteboard.

Even though Eclipse does it, I'm sure you know where HashMap lives. Some people are compile-and-pray type devs. They lean on auto-complete for everything, not as a productivity tool, but because they don't know how to do even basic things. We don't want those on our team.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#187

Post by zem » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:07 AM UTC

graynk wrote: post #18

And I am so sick of „I am so sick of leetcode-style interviews“-style posts. Yet here we are. How much more can this dead horse be beaten? Aren’t you tired of discussing this topic with the same arguments each time?

it's clearly not a dead horse as long as the leetcode interviews are still ubiquitous in the industry, and as long as people agree it is a problem. the posts are trying to convert a critical mass of people into realising the problem exists, and that they might be able to be part of the solution.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#188

Post by bombela » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:13 AM UTC

kidintech wrote: post #100

boshalfoshal wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but I don't really see how this invalidates the style of interviews where you're presented with some timeboxed coding problem (of reasonably scaled difficulty) and are asked to solve it. There will be bad actors regardless of the interview style, thats why companies have multiple interview types/styles/rounds to sus out a candidate, as you probably know. If they BSed their way through a leetcode int…

> and are asked to solve it. I think this is where our different opinions come from, while we agree on the other aspects. In my personal experience, I have never felt that the hire/no-hire decision relied exclusively on my ability of solving the presented problem; I have passed interviews where I did not solve the LC-style problem optimally but I communicated clearly, picked up on hints, was aware of when I hit "wall…

I have had all possible experiences. Sometimes I feel like genius and ace some leetcode with an almost novel solution. Sometimes I missunderstand the question/scope and mud myself into the hole of despair.

I have been rejected for one mediocre interview among many good ones. Or the other way around accepted even though I didn't perform well.

Sometimes the interviewer works with me. Sometimes against me. Sometimes a war story impresseses positively, sometimes raises suspicions.

At this point it feels like gambling.

I have also ran almost 400 interviews on the other side over the years, and to me it seems quite clear when somebody cannot write code at all. I like to think I am not biased. But who knows.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#189

Post by valenterry » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:16 AM UTC

mvdtnz wrote: post #170

watwut wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do produce plenty of false positives - just not "you hire an idiot" kind. You will hire a person completely unsuitable for the actual job, but is good at leet. Issue is not the lack of intelligence. Issue is not being software engineer despite being good at algorithms. Or not being good at whatever your position requires. I do work in a team where majority was hired by puzzles of sorts. All of them are smart. Th…

Most interview processes I've been through (many, 15 year veteran) involve both the leetcode crap and at least one fit/culture/soft skills round.

Which is insufficient in terms of technical tests.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#190

Post by jkukul » Tue, Jun 04, 2024, 9:17 AM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #22

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…

I'm sure anyone determined to do so can act unfairly regardless of what process is in place, but the fact that there is a standardized test in my mind does the opposite and makes the process much fairer. Assuming a fair-minded interviewer, the process gives a chance to a candidate whose resume may have less vaunted names on it to demonstrate their skill. I'm quite sure that I'd never have had some of the opportunitie…

A leet-code test would be much more standardized if candidates could solve it at home. Just send me a link to the quiz and let me solve it within a specified time frame.

I've done tests like this for some companies. It felt a lot fairer and more closely resembling the actual work environment than live leet-code interviews, with biased interviewer(s) and a stress factor that's not a part of the actual job.