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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

#341

Post by hobs »

martindbp wrote: post #315
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…

It's also a great way to filter out anyone who has any kind of commitment like kids, aging parents to take care of, or have health issues themselves that makes it hard to cram leet code non stop on top of a busy career. For companies this is very rational, you want non-distracted employees who can work over time.

It's really not that rational unless you want someone only familiar with being the top code monkey.

In all my years of sw dev the number of times that would have helped vs being able to communicate and manage expectations across a swath of people is like 1:1000.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#342

Post by Der_Einzige »

batshit_beaver wrote: post #164
watwut wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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.

I actually got a google doc interview where they asked me to code up a hyperparamater optimizer from scratch. I couldn’t believe that they asked me to code in a google doc. I should have stopped the interview right there.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#343

Post by dep_b »

vgalin wrote: post #329
pprotas wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age does not hinder you in solving leetcode problems

But the older you are, the more likely it is that you have built a family and have children and responsibilities outside of work. You cannot necessarily afford to spend time studying (problems untied to the real world) as much as someone younger I guess.

The reason I’m faster than younger developers is that I go into the right direction immediately.

If you present me with an unknown problem that requires deep concentration a younger version of me might stand more chance.

I really suck at leetcode when tired.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#344

Post by Der_Einzige »

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 literally interview on purpose with Amazon to waste their time (revenge for them mistreating my partner). After at least 10 full onsites, I can tell you that Amazon uses leetcode style interviews in every single one of those onsites.

Feels nice to come into their stupid contrived behaviorals and not even care about the “Star” method or their stupid leadership principals. I even straight up told them in one interview that their principals were stupid and victim blaming. I’m shocked that they haven’t blacklisted me yet - and doing so would be nice because Amazon recruiter spam is actually quite annoying.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#345

Post by DonHopkins »

daemin wrote: post #296
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.

Unless you specifically want a compiling and running version of FizzBuzz you don't actually need to use or know about the mod operator. At least for me it would be sufficient if the person used a function like IsMultipleOf(x, m), or Remainder(x, n). This would at least make it clear what the function did even if they didn't get the exact operator. The other thing to note is that the mod operator works differently on…

> the mod operator works differently on different languages and platforms

Not with positive inputs, which is the domain of FizzBuzz.

Even if you don't know what "mod" means, if you have no idea know what a remainder is, and that the problem calls for it, and you can't derive the mod operator using integer addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, then your math and problem solving skills are pretty weak, which FizzBuzz tests.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#346

Post by TrackerFF »

My problem with LC-style questions is that it becomes a race to the bottom.

At some point, you end up with questions that either lucky people or savants are able to answer. Yes, that might be an exaggeration, but it's not too far off the mark.

Applicants discovered, long ago, that if you simply grind every questions on LC - you will likely get asked some of those questions wherever you interview.

Companies fight back by asking harder questions. Before you know it, a standard interview consists of LC hard questions.

And with the advent of LLMs, it is even harder to sniff out candidates if the interviews are remote.

At some point you'll just have to re-do the whole process, and built it up from scratch.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#348

Post by johnnyanmac »

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…

>I lol at people who say there is any Engineering in software.

There definitely is. Safety/mission critical code is definately a more rigorous, formal process where you don't just download a library for padding a string (you probably wouldn't use built-in strings anyway on this kind of code).

But I agree that the way most coding works (i.e. move fast and fail often) is completely antithetical to how engineers should work. But there's infinite moneys and almost zero accountability, so who's gonna stop them?

>Knowing to optimize for time by using vectors is more of an art, than a science.

that's definitely why I fully agree with calling programmers creatives over engineers. once you get past dead simple problems, no two programmers are going to approach a prompt the exact same way. performance, scalabiliy, documenting, version control friendliness, even ephemeral stuff like code style. coders very much are artists who happen to know a lot of math.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#349

Post by JKCalhoun »

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…

Leetcode feels meritocratic. I suspect many people (engineers perhaps more so) don't trust their ability to "size someone up" from 45 minutes of casual conversation alone. Or worse, they worry that they'll have to defend their hire/donthire based on what amounts to a casual conversation whereby they were trying to judge character, affability, confidence, drive, motivation....

Leetcode is lazy, easy.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#350

Post by CoastalCoder »

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…

> ... and my true failure was my unwillingness to cheat.

Integrity is really tested when it costs you something. I'd call this a true win.

(I recognize there are dire situations where cheating might be warranted. I hope you're not there yet.)

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