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A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

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Re: A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

#111

Post by kudokatz »

biztos wrote: post #47
sukilot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's unlikely for you to learn those skills quickly? People who have all those skills earn over $300K at those companies.

To be fair, a lot of people who have none of those skills also earn well over $300K at those companies. Just like grinding leetcode can get you in the door, the skills you need for advancement are not necessarily the same ones you need for making good software. I hope the parent makes the best of it and becomes good at the craft, it will make the job a lot more enjoyable even if it may not be the fastest way up the l…

> the skills you need for advancement are not necessarily the same ones

Exactly this. I suggest learning how to fabricate (or at least exaggerate) "impact" to get promoted. It's the fastest way to make money once you're in the door. Show how much of a team player you are to deliver cross-team, impactful results specifically by stepping on bodies to get there--it'll make you rich!

Re: A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

#112

Post by jkcorrea »

zerr wrote: post #93
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interviews are only partially about testing your body of experience. They're also supposed to test your aptitude and ability to grow in the future. If you were capable of studying Leetcode so hard that you mastered the interview process at one of the most selective software companies in the world in only a few months, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability…

Err, but why do you have to prove it for every next job?... In reality, it's a legal way for: 1. Ageism - not many seniors are desperate enough or have a free time for Competitive Programming preps. 2. Making switching jobs harder - for every next job one has to prepare again, because nobody is using Competitive Programming stuff during real work, so you forget. Keep in mind that CP != CS. And CP is not everyone's cu…

#2 doesn't make sense, though: If I'm company B, trying to poach from company A, it would be in my best interest to make the leap to applying/interviewing less difficult, not more for employee's of company A.

Unless you're implying a set of companies are all in league with each other to reduce churn/competition for talent

Re: A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

#114

Post by mettamage »

vechagup wrote: post #83
mettamage wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get past the resume screening? Or are you from the US, because then it's much easier to get past the screeming, or so it seems. I have yet to be invited for so much as an HR call when it comes to FAANG (bachelor/master CS from a Dutch university). Maybe I'm not getting past the application tracking system?

Having a current employee add your resume to an ATS as a referral is the most efficient route. Around SF at least it's not particularly hard to find someone willing to do that even if they hardly know you. This sort of networking is likely harder elsewhere, but perhaps not by much. Simply uploading your resume to a large tech company's website will rarely get you anywhere, is what I've heard from recruiters.

Ah, so that's what I've been doing wrong for 18 months. Thanks! I'll be putting this to good use :)

Re: A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

#115

Post by jkcorrea »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #65
logicslave12 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was working on a “startup”/kinda just unemployed for two years. I studied leetcode hard, and got hired into a 300k a year job at FAANG. I know nothing about testing, git, software process, roll outs, dev ops, etc. I barely know how to do software engineering. What an idiotic hiring process.

Interviews are only partially about testing your body of experience. They're also supposed to test your aptitude and ability to grow in the future. If you were capable of studying Leetcode so hard that you mastered the interview process at one of the most selective software companies in the world in only a few months, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability…

> If you were capable of studying Leetcode so hard that you mastered the interview process at one of the most selective software companies in the world in only a few months, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability to learn quickly toward picking up the basics of git, dev ops, and so on.

So by that logic, why not just create some game for candidates to master. If all you're testing for is "how much they want it" and how quickly they pick up on some arbitrary system that they'll never use in their actual job, then the subject shouldn't matter, right?

Re: A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

#117

Post by biztos »

username90 wrote: post #82
biztos wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I love leetcode (the website) and do it for fun once in a while, and if I decide to go for a big grind later on then I don't think I'll particularly mind that part even if it doesn't get me my ticket to the Google Bus. The risk of cynicism is that I've been doing this for 25 years or so and there are some things I'm quite good at that can add a lot of value to a company, but it appears that the highest-payin…

> but it appears that the highest-paying outfits will judge me on things that are at best very tangentially related to how I can make/save them money. This is very wrong, leetcode is just the baseline and don't determine your seniority. Even the best leetcoder in the world had to start at the lowest junior level after college. Instead they look at your experience and what value you can bring to determine if you becom…

Yes, I will have to pass the leetcode bar, which has very little to do with my actual value add. I understand that’s how it works, I have friends who hire for some of these companies, but thanks for explaining.

I strongly dislike having that bar, because I think it is irrational to use it as the baseline hoop everyone has to jump through. And honestly because it’s not my strongest suit, I’m sure I’d be less bothered if it was something I’m good at and your average fresh CS grad is not. Which is kinda how we ended up here I think.

Re: A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

#118

Post by Icathian »

jkcorrea wrote: post #115
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interviews are only partially about testing your body of experience. They're also supposed to test your aptitude and ability to grow in the future. If you were capable of studying Leetcode so hard that you mastered the interview process at one of the most selective software companies in the world in only a few months, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability…

> If you were capable of studying Leetcode so hard that you mastered the interview process at one of the most selective software companies in the world in only a few months, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability to learn quickly toward picking up the basics of git, dev ops, and so on. So by that logic, why not just create some game for candidates to maste…

They already have. And at the time it was being developed and gathering momentum, some plausibility as a thin defense of it was helpful. Why go through that process again now when the existing system is already firmly in place?

Re: A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

#119

Post by jephir »

vechagup wrote: post #83
mettamage wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get past the resume screening? Or are you from the US, because then it's much easier to get past the screeming, or so it seems. I have yet to be invited for so much as an HR call when it comes to FAANG (bachelor/master CS from a Dutch university). Maybe I'm not getting past the application tracking system?

Having a current employee add your resume to an ATS as a referral is the most efficient route. Around SF at least it's not particularly hard to find someone willing to do that even if they hardly know you. This sort of networking is likely harder elsewhere, but perhaps not by much. Simply uploading your resume to a large tech company's website will rarely get you anywhere, is what I've heard from recruiters.

Second this. Internal referral is the most reliable way to get in the door in my experience.

Re: A guide to learning algorithms through LeetCode

#120

Post by bcrosby95 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #70
pcestrada wrote: post #20

Can you imagine having to learn all this just to make a connection to a database, process some data, and then persist it somewhere?

The popular sentiment on computer science knowledge has done a complete 180 in the past several years. Not that long ago, it was popular to complain that junior SWEs didn't really understand the algorithms, the data structures, and what was going on behind the scenes. The complaint was that they were just copy and pasting from internet searches until things sort of worked on their machine, but they couldn't recognize…

> Personally, I've never met anyone who was good at Leetcode yet produced bad code in production. I'm sure there's someone out there who knows a guy who knows a guy who can somehow ace Leetcode but can't write an efficient website backend, but it's not the norm.

Weird. Ability to leetcode doesn't mean you know what is happening in e.g. an RDBMS. We've had people good at leetcode write a single query to delete hundreds of millions of records in a table with billions of records that was being constantly updated by the live website. Needless to say it didn't go over well. Ability to leetcode doesn't give you any knowledge that doing so might be a bad idea.

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