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We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

interviewdb.io

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Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#21

Post by rvz »

Yet, these tech interview tests and questions have already been gamed to death by very clever folks like the creator of InterviewCoder: [0] who is now making more than $100K a month out of it.

But do you know what? Good. It is for the best.

This also signals the definitive end of Leetcode, Hackerrank and all the other useless online assessment tools. It is now a completely ineffective tool thanks to AI.

It also is an example that fits the Y Combinator definition to find those who are "hacking a system to your advantage" instead of a "computer system".

Whoever built this destroyed the online assessment system with all its participants in it.

If you're still using online assessment tools like Leetcode, it's now time to find a much more rigorous method of interviewing candidates and also bring on-site interviews back.

[0] https://www.interviewcoder.co/

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#22

Post by mavelikara »

pc86 wrote: post #16
INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

I struggled early in my career with interviews. Granted this was 2008-2010 era so the job market was not great, especially in a not-quite-urban non-coastal city where I was for a junior developer. But something did change when I stopped treating interviews as "convince them to like me" / "convince them to hire me" and started treating them as "find out if I want to work (in order) 1) at this company, 2) on this proje…

What makes those questions ok for Tier-1 companies to ask, in your opinion?

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#25

Post by windward »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #10
INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

It should be. If the interview tests for what you crammed for, it doesn't test for what you'll remember a month onto the job. That's a sub-optimal strategy for the interviewer.

Devil's advocate: there exists a corpus of questions solvable with a small number of techniques after a few weeks of decicated study. When someone has the right brain, these questions are the barrier to a 99th percentile income. What does it say about an interviewee that doesn't bother?

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#26

Post by criddell »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #10
INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

It should be. If the interview tests for what you crammed for, it doesn't test for what you'll remember a month onto the job. That's a sub-optimal strategy for the interviewer.

I occasionally interview people and that wouldn't really bother me. If you can learn something once you'll be able to re-learn it down the road when needed.

I've found myself in that situation helping my kids with their homework. I might not be able to define L'Hôpital's rule off the top of my head, but it only takes a few minutes of reading to reload it into my brain.

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#27

Post by neilv »

corpulentboss wrote: post #9

Hot take - these types of interviews are caused by "elite overproduction" - there are too many very qualified and capable programmers, so the end result is a process that is selecting for the most agreeable and obedient personalities who agree to put up with these gauntlets.

In the dotcom boom, my impression was that (pre-existing Microsoft interviews aside) current techbro interview baggery was caused by a bunch of affluent people rushing into the field, and (for various reasons) seeking to erect barriers to entry for people who are not them.

But now most people working implicitly assume that the interviews are supposed to be some BS test rituals, rather than a collegial dialogue. So now we're just beating anyone who tries to climb the ladder to get the bananas.

I think you're right that there's also something to the obedient corporate drone theory, for some very large and stodgy companies, in the exact flavor of interview nonsense that they do. But at the bulk of tech companies, I think a lot of hiring managers just want people who will be productive and professional, and these interview rituals don't seem to be good indicators of that.

It may also be that "elite overproduction" is also going on, depending on how you define the terms. Or just oversupply of people who meet the (as XKCD put it) "our entire field is bad at what we do" bar for competence. But in any case, I don't think that overproduction is the cause of the nonsense interviews, but maybe overproduction permits the process to be ridiculous.

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#29

Post by [deleted] »

TheBigSalad wrote: post #13
INTPenis wrote: post #4

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

I agree but I companies like Meta/Apple/Amazon hire so much that they probably have full time statisticians just to analyze interview process and map that back to performance. So you have to assume this maps to real world success. Even if you are just testing an employee's preparation, maybe that means something.

[deleted]

Re: We built a crowdsourced interview question database for tech interviews

#30

Post by pc86 »

mavelikara wrote: post #22
pc86 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggled early in my career with interviews. Granted this was 2008-2010 era so the job market was not great, especially in a not-quite-urban non-coastal city where I was for a junior developer. But something did change when I stopped treating interviews as "convince them to like me" / "convince them to hire me" and started treating them as "find out if I want to work (in order) 1) at this company, 2) on this proje…

What makes those questions ok for Tier-1 companies to ask, in your opinion?

I don't think it's ok, but the compensation and competition are both so high they can get away with it. A senior dev at Google in Manhattan will make more than a general practice physician in the same area. This is for a job that you can do with zero credentialing, no degree required, for half the hours and none of the liability. The competition is insane.

Me being on my high horse is not going to change Facebook's hiring practices. But if I get asked to interview somewhere local where they may only be interviewing a half dozen people for a role over a few months, and I stop it early because they start throwing out LeetCode hards, that could be a non-trivial signal for them.

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