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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

#571

Post by palata »

6510 wrote: post #547
palata wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the interviewer has the power to fail you if you put them in a bad position. It is fundamentally an asymmetrical situation where the interviewer is in a dominant position.

I would argue that is only true in an employer employee relationship. I fondly remember laughing my ass off with the owner of a company about what a shit job he was offering. A shit job with shit pay, no wonder you are looking for employees. It took me 5 minutes to figure out there was no real job worth considering. We spend the better part of an hour just chatting after that. [In my opinion] he was drowning in work…

> I would argue that is only true in an employer employee relationship.

Then let me tell you: it's not really a choice. It's not something the company writes somewhere. If the interviewee feels like the interviewer is in a dominant position, then the interviewer is in a dominant position.

I feel like that as an interviewee, and I am absolutely certain that most people do. Maybe you don't, that's good for you. But you are more of an exception. And it's still important to know that you are in a dominant position when you are an interviewer.

Never forget that you can totally abuse someone without realizing it when you are in a dominant position. Remember #metoo.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#572

Post by throwaway7ahgb »

tnel77 wrote: post #528
ryandrake wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, smaller and medium sized companies just don't have the recruiting infrastructure to weed out the fakers. When I worked in FAANG companies, by the time a candidate got to me, they were pretty good . They went through enough filters and checkpoints and annoying gates that I never really had to do a FizzBuzz equivalent. When I worked for more medium sized companies, I'd get software engineering candidates who obvio…

I agree. How are these people graduating? What does that say about our universities?

I wouldn't blame the universities.

Almost everyone embellishes their resume. Some do it to an extreme. The first stage should be weeding these people out, and any hiring manager learns this lesson very quickly.

Story: I learned this as a hiring manager early on. I was the resume screener, first contact and then last contact. Everyone in between was my team and other adjacent teams. I failed to ask the right questions in a phone screen and when we brought this guy on-site he failed very bad. Even worse, he broke down begging for for another problem he could solve.

It was bad for everyone and we were a very accommodating group that gives many tries. We weren't looking for perfect answers to one question.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#573

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

beej71 wrote: post #445
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. A good hire is a windfall, a bad hire can be an existential threat to the team or the entire company.

But you hired them at-will, right? The bad hires I've seen that are existential threats were only there because management refused to fire them.

"At-will", he says to the expat to Finland. I wish. It's nearly impossible for me, or any FTE I know here, to get fired. (To be fair, I have never to my knowledge been considered 'a bad hire' by anyone except Home Depot.)

But in fact even in at-will situations, firing aversion seems to be a real and expensive issue that all kinds of managers in organizations face [1] [2].

So, in one sense I agree, bad hires are existential threats "only" because we don't fire them fast enough. On the other hand, have you ever had to fire someone yourself? Try it. It's heart-wrenching, even to a heartless utility monster like yours truly.

[1]: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/06/firing_aversion_2.h...

[2]: https://www.econlib.org/firing-and-the-left/

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#574

Post by emodendroket »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #253
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…

> 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. This is what privilege looks like. The inability to see barriers that affect others in a worse position. Standards do not imply fairness only consistency. You got a test that filters out people who lack the time to…

OK, but I have a two-year-old, so consider my privilege sufficiently "checked" before having written the post. Anyway, what would you suggest that would be more fair?

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#575

Post by emodendroket »

civilized wrote: post #262
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 ...a standardized test? No. There are tests. They sure as heck aren't standardized. Maybe they should be, since everyone seems to be doing the same thing.

Within one organization the form is standardized, and across companies it's very similar. But sure, maybe not the right word. I'm comparing it to "just letting the interviewers chat and decide based on whatever" which is typical in industries without a skills test.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#576

Post by CoastalCoder »

davedx wrote: post #567
CoastalCoder wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the specific job role, I actually like that interview question. It tests knowledge of the C++ vtable and function pointers, which is probably a good marker for intermediate-level C++ knowledge. Especially for debugging some heinous bugs.

It tests knowledge of how C++ itself is implemented . That's not really something most people study or prepare for unless they work on C++ compilers. I wouldn't call knowing how vtables are implemented intermediate-level C++ knowledge, and I never again encountered it despite spending another ... 5-6 years writing C++ code afterwards. It's intellectually interesting for sure, I think depending on how it's introduced…

My personal experience has been that vtables:

(1) occasionally show up in learning materials regarding virtual methods, virtual inheritance, static vs. dynamic types, and RTTI, and

(2) sometimes understanding them is very helpful when debugging gnarly problems, especially with objects that have been wrongly typecast. I.e., you can inspect vtables in gdb.

Maybe the takeaway here is that C++ is a huge topic, and different people have had to learn different details.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#577

Post by dkmb »

koliber wrote: post #186
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?

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…

Equating memorizing import paths - something IDEs have been doing automatically for decades now - to 'basic ability' might be the dumbest thing I've read this year.

It's a valuable skill to recognize which knowledge is important, and which is fluff you shouldn't waste cycles on. Knowing what a hashmap is useful for, when to use it, and when it's suboptimal, is important. Memorizing import paths is not.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#579

Post by stephenblum »

KaiserPro wrote: post #500
Aurornis wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Totally, but leetcode wont filter them out. Coding challenges won’t filter every pathological bad hire, but coding challenges do catch a lot of bad hires. LeetCode shouldn’t be the entirety of the interview. It’s just part of it.

> but coding challenges do catch a lot of bad hires. leetcode doesn't catch bad hires, as someone whos done a lot of interviews, we could easily catch "bad" coders with a very simple whiteboard test or a "look at this code and tell me what you think" but people being bad at code aren't the company killers, its the toxic people who are "good" at coding that do. They can be very good at these kind of tests, but are abs…

You are right, there's not enough time to filter a bad hire. Not enough time to fully vet anyone during an interview. We can work a challenge together to see how you work collaboratively

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#580

Post by blackmesaind »

FabHK wrote: post #471
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…

So how do you find, in an interview setting, good software engineers? (And better than with LeetCode-style questions?)

12 hour take home assessment
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