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Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

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Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#211

Post by bluGill »

tavavex wrote: post #201
bluGill wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what people miss about interviews. Often when you interview you don't have reasonable leads on any other job and so you don't feel like there is a choice since you likely need a job (unemployment rarely pays as well as a job). However interviews are not only about the company deciding if they will hire you, they are also about do you want to work there and convincing you to take the job if one is offered. So…

People don't miss that about interviews, they just know that the balance of power is so skewed that the interests of the employer become the only relevant part. The employer can keep going through hundreds of applicants until they find someone who's literally perfect in every single way, they have nearly unlimited time. Meanwhile, the applicants need a job now, any job at all, they're on a hard time limit until their…

Maybe in some companies. Every interviewer I've talked to has never considered those a negative. Most don't even think of them at all once the interview is over. Of course I've always worked in companies where people work their 8 hours and go home to their family and so you would be a good fit (depending on what you asked).

I know applicants need the job more than they need you. However you still have options if you don't get this one - you should always be following several leads until you finally get a job. Odds are your other leads are not anywhere close to as advanced as this, but if you can wait a couple more months you have a chance.

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#212

Post by MarcelOlsz »

tayo42 wrote: post #209
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. I just went through an interview process where I absolutely killed the assignment (had the best one they'd seen), had positive signal/feedback from multiple engineers, CEO liked me a lot etc, only to get sunk by a CTO who thought it would be cool to give me a surprise live test because of "vibe coding paranoia". 11 weeks in the process, didn't get the role. Beyond fucking stupid. This was the demo/take-home (fo…

how much did this job pay?

60k-120k euros. The upper 20k probably being entirely inaccessible so in reality probably like 70-100k euros.

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#213

Post by sailingparrot »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #185
samiv wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The LC interviews are like testing people how fast they can run 100m after practice, while the real job is a slow arduous never ending jog with multiple detours and stops along the way. But yeah that's the game you have to play now if you want the top $$$ at one of the SMEGMA companies. I wrote (for example) my 2D game engine from scratch (3rd party libs excluded) https://github.com/ensisoft/detonator but would not b…

5 years ago you'd have a project like that, talk to someone at a company for like 30m-1hr about it, and then get an offer.

Did you mean to type 25? 5 years ago LC challenge were as, if not more, prevalent than they are today. And a single interview for a job is not something I have seen ever after 15 years in the space (and a bunch of successful OSS projects I can showcase).

I actually have the feeling it’s not as hardcore as it used to be on average. E.g. OpenAI doesn’t have a straight up LC interview even though they probably are the most sought after company. Google and MS and others still do it, but it feel like it has less weight in the final feedback than it did before. Most en-vogue startup have also ditched it for real world coding excercices.

Probably due to the fact that LC has been thoroughly gamed and is even less a useful signal than it was before.

Of course some still do, like Anthropic were you have to have a perfect score to 4 leetcode questions, automatically judged with no human contact, the worst kind of interview.

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#214

Post by Tenemo »

johnfn wrote: post #205
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. I just went through an interview process where I absolutely killed the assignment (had the best one they'd seen), had positive signal/feedback from multiple engineers, CEO liked me a lot etc, only to get sunk by a CTO who thought it would be cool to give me a surprise live test because of "vibe coding paranoia". 11 weeks in the process, didn't get the role. Beyond fucking stupid. This was the demo/take-home (fo…

It's funny because this repo really does seem vibe-coded. Obviously I have no reason not to believe you, but man! All those emojis in the install shell script - I've never seen anyone other than an AI do that :) Maybe you're the coder that the AI companies trained their AI on. Sorry about the job interview. That sucks.

There's even a rocket emoji in server console.logs... There are memes with ChatGPT and rocket emojis as a sign of AI use. The whole repo looks super vibe-coded, emojis, abundance of redundant comments, all in perfect English and grammar, and the readme also has that "chatty" feel to it.

I'm not saying that using AI for take-home assignments is bad/unethical overall, but you need to be honest about it. If he was lying to them about not using any AI assistance to write all those emojis and folder structure map in the repo, then the CTO had a good nose and rightfully caught him.

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#215

Post by MarcelOlsz »

sailingparrot wrote: post #213
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years ago you'd have a project like that, talk to someone at a company for like 30m-1hr about it, and then get an offer.

Did you mean to type 25? 5 years ago LC challenge were as, if not more, prevalent than they are today. And a single interview for a job is not something I have seen ever after 15 years in the space (and a bunch of successful OSS projects I can showcase). I actually have the feeling it’s not as hardcore as it used to be on average. E.g. OpenAI doesn’t have a straight up LC interview even though they probably are the m…

There's an entire planet of jobs that have nothing to do with leetcode. I was talking about those, not FAANG stuff. Unfortunately I am not FAANG royalty.

>Of course some still do, like Anthropic were you have to have a perfect score to 4 leetcode questions, automatically judged with no human contact, the worst kind of interview.

Should be illegal honestly.

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#216

Post by sigbottle »

LegionMammal978 wrote: post #147
js8 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I knew better how to use them for these coding problems, because I agree with GP they're underutilized. But I think if you have constraint problem, that has an efficient algorithm, but chokes a general constraint solver, that should be treated as a bug in the solver. It means that the solver uses bad heuristics, somewhere.

I'm pretty sure that due to Rice's theorem, etc., any finite set of heuristics will always miss some constraint problems that have an efficient solution. There's very rarely a silver bullet when it comes to generic algorithms.

I think they're saying that the types of counter-examples are so pathological in most cases that if you're doing any kind of auto-generation of constraints - for example, a DSL backed by a solver - should have good enough heuristics.

Like it might even be the case that certain types of pretty powerful DSLs just never generate "bad structures". I don't know, I've not done research on circuits, but this kind of analysis shows up all the time in other adjacent fields.

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#217

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #194
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an insane amount of work for a job application. Were you compensated for it at all?

No. Should I invoice them? I'm still livid about it. The kicker is the position pays a max of 60-120k euros, the maximum being what I made 5 years ago.

Probably too late now unfortunately.

The job market is brutal right now, and you have my sympathy. I hope you can find a good fit soon.

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#218

Post by zipy124 »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #194
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an insane amount of work for a job application. Were you compensated for it at all?

No. Should I invoice them? I'm still livid about it. The kicker is the position pays a max of 60-120k euros, the maximum being what I made 5 years ago.

TBF that's a pretty top tier salary for Europe.

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#219

Post by iyc_ »

samiv wrote: post #167
tracker1 wrote: post #77

My biggest problem with leetcode type questions is that you can't ask clarifying questions. My mind just doesn't work like most do, and leetcode to some extent seems to rely on people memorizing leetcode type answers. On a few, there's enough context that I can relate real understanding of the problem to, such as the coin example in the article... for others I've seen there's not enough there for me to "get" the ques…

The LC interviews are like testing people how fast they can run 100m after practice, while the real job is a slow arduous never ending jog with multiple detours and stops along the way. But yeah that's the game you have to play now if you want the top $$$ at one of the SMEGMA companies. I wrote (for example) my 2D game engine from scratch (3rd party libs excluded) https://github.com/ensisoft/detonator but would not b…

Mistakenly read this as you wrote that 2D game engine (which looks awesome btw) for a job interview to get the job: "I can't compete with this!!! HOW CAN I COMPETE WITH THESE TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS!?!?! OH GAWD!!!"

Re: Many hard LeetCode problems are easy constraint problems

#220

Post by MarcelOlsz »

Tenemo wrote: post #214
johnfn wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because this repo really does seem vibe-coded. Obviously I have no reason not to believe you, but man! All those emojis in the install shell script - I've never seen anyone other than an AI do that :) Maybe you're the coder that the AI companies trained their AI on. Sorry about the job interview. That sucks.

There's even a rocket emoji in server console.logs... There are memes with ChatGPT and rocket emojis as a sign of AI use. The whole repo looks super vibe-coded, emojis, abundance of redundant comments, all in perfect English and grammar, and the readme also has that "chatty" feel to it. I'm not saying that using AI for take-home assignments is bad/unethical overall, but you need to be honest about it. If he was lying…

Oh my god Becky, there's even a rocket emoji in the server console logs!

Should I also be "honest" about tab-completion? Where do you draw the line? Maybe I should be punished for having an internet connection too. Using AI for docker/readme's/simple scaffolding I would have done anyways? Oh the horror!

There was no lying because there was no discussion or mention of AI at all. Had they asked me, I'd have happily told them yes I obviously use AI to help me save time on grunt-work, I've been doing this stuff for like 15 years.

It's an unpaid take-home assignment. You'd have to be smoking crack to think that I would be rawdogging this. Imagine if I had a family or a wife or an existing job? I'd dump them after getting linked their assignment document.

Honestly at this point in the AI winter if you are a guy who has AI-inspired paranoia then I don't want to work for you because you are not "in the know".

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