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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

#611

Post by diehunde »

grishka wrote: post #192
SilverBirch wrote: post #29

I understand the frustration, but at the end of the day I think they do serve a purpose. They're not great at that purpose, but they're good enough and they generally produce false negatives (smart people fail) rather than false positives (you hire an idiot). And this makes sense, because a false negative is low cost (maybe you spend 50% longer interviewing candidates) but a false positive is high cost (you hire an i…

Okay, do do quizzes, but let people google goddamn stuff because that's just how software engineers operate. Don't make it an exam. Don't mimic the worst thing about the education systems. Both in the school and in the university, these goddamn exams were the worst because they tested memory first and everyone else second , and I'm such a kind of person that I could never remember things on command. It was a real str…

What are you going to google though? For most of these LC questions you only need to know how to use arrays, maps and loops. If I'm interviewing you and you tell me you need to google how to append something to an array or check if the element is in a map then I'll think you just haven't written enough code yet.

There are better questions where I do think google should be allowed but they aren't LC-style. Some examples are building APIs or operating on files

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#612

Post by emodendroket »

angoragoats wrote: post #603
emodendroket wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a lot of whiteboarding interviews in my life and it's never been "implement a quadtree." It's always, at its core, a small coding probably that could plausibly be part of a real-world problem, and therefore it is directly relevant to the job.

I've also never been asked a question like this, but it's because I specifically avoid the companies that are known to ask them. Sounds like you have as well (knowingly or not). But the OP is about LeetCode-style interviews, so that's what I was discussing.

No, I've been applying to companies all-in on the "leetcode" style of testing and I think you are misconstruing it.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#613

Post by emodendroket »

civilized wrote: post #601
emodendroket wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Leetcode-style tech interviews fall far short of standardized tests. In real standardized tests, the same questions are given to everyone, and effort is made to develop new questions not known to the test takers. They're more like a standardized test than a pure shoot-the-shit interview is, but still pretty far away.

OK, I grant the point but it doesn't fundamentally change my argument.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#614

Post by emodendroket »

John23832 wrote: post #604
emodendroket wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it seems a fairer way of apportioning limited opportunities than just looking at what school you went to, looking at previous companies on your resume, or seeing how well you can shoot the breeze.

An irrelevant exam vs nepotism/cronyism aren't the only two options.

I don't agree that the test is "irrelevant," but what option do you recommend?

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#615

Post by angoragoats »

emodendroket wrote: post #612
angoragoats wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also never been asked a question like this, but it's because I specifically avoid the companies that are known to ask them. Sounds like you have as well (knowingly or not). But the OP is about LeetCode-style interviews, so that's what I was discussing.

No, I've been applying to companies all-in on the "leetcode" style of testing and I think you are misconstruing it.

Are you claiming that no company asks irrelevant leetcode-style questions as part of its interview process? If so, that’ll require some more evidence than “well, I haven’t been asked any such questions.”

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#616

Post by John23832 »

emodendroket wrote: post #614
John23832 wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An irrelevant exam vs nepotism/cronyism aren't the only two options.

I don't agree that the test is "irrelevant," but what option do you recommend?

Interrogate the actual skills of the job and not pointless rote learning.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#617

Post by emodendroket »

angoragoats wrote: post #615
emodendroket wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I've been applying to companies all-in on the "leetcode" style of testing and I think you are misconstruing it.

Are you claiming that no company asks irrelevant leetcode-style questions as part of its interview process? If so, that’ll require some more evidence than “well, I haven’t been asked any such questions.”

I'm rejecting your characterization of "leetcode-style" questions as 1) irrelevant 2) primarily about simply implementing some obscure data structure (as opposed to correctly using data structures).

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#618

Post by angoragoats »

emodendroket wrote: post #617
angoragoats wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming that no company asks irrelevant leetcode-style questions as part of its interview process? If so, that’ll require some more evidence than “well, I haven’t been asked any such questions.”

I'm rejecting your characterization of "leetcode-style" questions as 1) irrelevant 2) primarily about simply implementing some obscure data structure (as opposed to correctly using data structures).

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear; I didn't mean to say that all LC questions are irrelevant. I was just asking if you're claiming that no company uses LC questions which are irrelevant. Because if you are, that seems like a pretty difficult claim to prove given all the stories out there on every company review/discussion site like Blind or Glassdoor.

And my "implement a quadtree" example was hyperbole; again I'm sorry if you didn't recognize it as such. I do suspect we have wildly different definitons of what questions qualify as "relevant to the position," though, so I'm not sure how far we're going to get in this discussion.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#619

Post by angoragoats »

throwaway7ahgb wrote: post #377
hackinthebochs wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If that were the case then a normal, well accomplished software engineer shouldn't need to "grind" leetcode to pass an interview. No, what this shows is that the skill range for accomplished professional software devs is absolutely massive. What these companies want is to find the tail end of this very wide distribution. Leetcode interviews do a decent job at this. If you have been coding for a decade and can't do l…

FWIW I sort of agree with you. Background: I'm in a FAANG type company now, a YC company, 3000+ engineers. I'm a Staff SWE with 20+ years of experience (ECE degree) and make $600k+ per year. I've went through the promo cycle here (it sucks). I can't do any leet hards and can do leet mediums after studying. Some easy's take me a couple of tries. I usually do very poorly in interview coding exercises. ** throwaway , ma…

> FWIW I sort of agree with you.

> [describes self, story completely contradicts parent post]

I'd say you're a perfect example of why "Leetcode problems are a good filter for getting the top 0.X% of talent" is false.

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