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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

#221

Post by stefan_ »

sensanaty wrote: post #199
XorNot wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you tell them what the "mod" operator is before giving it? The failure rate of FizzBuzz has always struck me as depending on the idea that you can do a lot of programming and just never need that operator.

Yeah I know how to implement FizzBuzz since it's such a meme, but I've basically never used the mod operator in real code. Maybe it comes up in more math-y code I suppose, but for most backend/frontend/SQL code I've never reached for it.

More mathy code like checking if a number is even or splitting a total number of seconds into minutes and seconds?

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#223

Post by Edd1CC »

resource_waste wrote: post #88
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…

>They are not software engineers and it shows massively. Coming from Real Engineering and making 2x more programming, I lol at people who say there is any Engineering in software. We are programmers dealing with layers upon layers of abstraction. Knowing to optimize for time by using vectors is more of an art, than a science. I did do safety critical C code and Assembly which are probably my hole in the whole 'its no…

Hillel Wayne did a good "study" on this by speaking to a bunch of engineers who moved into software, engineers who stayed in software, and engineers who only worked in software (yes, you can be a chartered engineer in most Western countries including the US and UK purely from software).

The strong consensus was that software is an engineering discipline, and the nitpicking you can have on any particular topic that is/isn't engineering-y can be applied across the board.

But this conversation is totally moot IMO because if you have a bachelors in computer science or software engineering, and a masters in the same discipline, and several years experience, you can apply and become the same chartered engineer from the same association that does "real" engineering.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#224

Post by yreg »

I once had an interview that I really liked. It was for a bank.

They give the candidate some messy, done-in-a-hurry code (but not purposefully obfuscated) and ask them to refactor it to the best of their ability. The interviewer sits next to the candidate and talks to them throughout the whole process. It's pretty much pair programming, but the candidate has the initiative.

I found it to be a breath of fresh air after all the leetcode interviews. Of course, they have the luxury of doing this, because they know what exact technologies they are using and they don't need to measure candidate's ability to learn new tech, etc. In their situation they are more interested in topics like whether the candidate can produce maintainable code, name things properly or communicate with co-workers.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#225

Post by emblaegh »

kristopolous wrote: post #197
batshit_beaver wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google used to ask people to write code in a Google doc. No tools allowed. Facebook to this day disables intellisense in their coderpad interviews. It's fucked up.

It'd be like interviewing a chef and you give them twigs and a flint rock to roll their own stove. I don't get what these tests are trying to show. Breadth? Depth? There's other ways. Give some complicated code that touches a bunch of things and have them work with that.

From my interview at facebook some four years ago, I am inclined to believe they disable intelisense so the candidates do not get tangled up in the minutiae of language syntax, function arguments, etc. and instead focus on the algorithm they are trying to write.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#226

Post by ownagefool »

wruza wrote: post #177
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…

A lot of people couldn’t even read this thread if someone was watching closely. They’d recognize words and idioms, but couldn’t make sense of these or think. It’s called anxiety and rarely has anything to do with actual performance. Anxiety is a frequent guest in a smart guy’s home. As an early 2000s integrator/analytics I learned to write code when someone watches out of interest or straight time pressure (still tax…

I have empathy for the false negatives. I have been them, or maybe at times I'm simply a false positive, the problem is those people are likely to freeze no matter the interview.

Further still, I get push back with folks citing self-prescribed medical conditions, but the same people generally display the same behaviours during the working day.

So other than contract to hire, which typically limits you to people with a job, I don't personally have a better way.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#228

Post by workingjubilee »

lupusreal wrote: post #127
dinobones wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take issue with it because Leetcode gives tech people a fake feel good, “yeah but at least it’s fair” illusion, when really it’s probably just as biased as any other hiring method. This is ironic considering these companies have forced mandatory DEI seminars (which I have no problem with btw), inclusive language, #EveryoneCanCode, and so on. But despite all this, you end up with teams and organizations that are 99%…

> This is ironic considering these companies have forced mandatory DEI seminars (which I have no problem with btw), inclusive language, #EveryoneCanCode, and so on. I really do wonder what those sanctimonious sermons are meant to accomplish. People who are already ideologically aligned with them won't learn anything new and may just resent it, while people who aren't aligned won't become aligned as a result of that "…

struggle sessions usually involve public torture or executions. it's laughable to compare "being mildly inconvenienced" with that.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#229

Post by noodleman »

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…

This is a good assessment. 1 and 2 are why the system won't change, but I don't think they were intentionally designed with that in mind. I think it's a hang over from academia, bearing in mind how many of the top engineers at FAANG are PhDs.

Well, that and how almost nobody who successfully finds employment after "grinding" leetcodes wants to remove the barriers for entry.

I think Leetcoders can't envisage a better way to assess someone than by subjecting them to the same kind of hoop-jumping you get made to do in university. They're not interviewing you for a job as there's no module on interviewing candidates on the CS curriculum, and don't have much professional experience outside of academics or software engineering. They're simulating a dissertation defence, because that's how they were assessed for their competence.

That's my charitable interpretation. If I'm being cynical, it's elitism - a way of making sure you're "one of us" (read: obnoxiously academic, Type-A personality, "logic over feelings").

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#230

Post by arethuza »

XorNot wrote: post #180
sjaak wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you tell them what the "mod" operator is before giving it? The failure rate of FizzBuzz has always struck me as depending on the idea that you can do a lot of programming and just never need that operator.

I once worked with a guy who was an incredibly good developer and I was surprised when he didn't see anything special about the number 64 (i.e. a power of two) - turns out that he'd never done any bit fiddling type work so he hadn't had to think in those terms. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people hadn't heard of "mod" either....
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