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It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

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Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#111

Post by raydev »

paxys wrote: post #70
marcosdumay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's possibly some worldview mismatch on your comment, because leetcode isn't "basic scales" programming for any specialty. It's much closer to expect your world famous violin player to sing on the stage than it is to expect them to play scales on the violin. But then, maybe not. Some people call all kinds of random exercises by "leetcode". The author may be one of those, I don't know if anybody can know this.

Basic data structures and algorithms knowledge is a base skill that will translate to better success in any software job. Yes you may not be coding graphs in your day job (although you might - I have personally done it before), but someone who can grasp stuff like BFS vs DFS and Dijkstra's algorithm will absolutely be better at the job than someone who comes in and says "idk who cares, I'll just use a library".

There's an enormous gap between knowing when to use those tools and creating a solution with those tools when you already have the job, vs banging out a perfect solution in 20-40 minutes with someone looking over your shoulder, who is also deciding whether you deserve a paycheck based on those 20 minutes.

Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#112

Post by tzs »

returnInfinity wrote: post #104

After many interviews last few months, I would prefer all interviews be leetcode. Tired of getting rejected, because you don't have experience with their particular tech stack.

I don't think that would lessen rejections for not having experience with their particular tech stack. I think the tech stack requirements are because they don't expect people to stick around long term and so don't want any of that time taken up by the person having to learn a new tech stack.

Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#113

Post by foooorsyth »

uberman wrote: post #79
paxys wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic data structures and algorithms knowledge is a base skill that will translate to better success in any software job. Yes you may not be coding graphs in your day job (although you might - I have personally done it before), but someone who can grasp stuff like BFS vs DFS and Dijkstra's algorithm will absolutely be better at the job than someone who comes in and says "idk who cares, I'll just use a library".

BFS? Really, there are libraries for that and I would hire a kid who timidly used one as they could not remember how to implement it over someone who confidently introduced and off by one bug because they thought they knew how to implement it without references.

BFS/DFS is astonishingly simple. It’s like 10 lines of code. And it’s almost always done (in practice) with a custom type where you work your way through custom fields pointing to the next vertex, so it’s not an algorithm / structure that lends itself well to standard libraries. It’s not like a self-balancing tree (which is actually a bug-prone, large implementation that you should just let the standard lib handle).

If you can’t trust the people sitting next to you implement a simple graph traversal without bugs, then your organization has a professional standards problem.

Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#114

Post by syspec »

billy99k wrote: post #106
sandeep1998 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you switch to? (looking alternatives myself)

Cybersecurity. I'm on the offensive side. All tests I've taken have been relevant to the job.

It's the kind of field where you can talk yourself up more easily

Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#115

Post by ionwake »

seanhunter wrote: post #93
ionwake wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree with you seanhunter ( and everyone else mostly) so please dont take offence I could be wrong but the following is my opinion. I am thankful most companies are gatekept by people who think like you as I feel it gives me and my company an advantage. In the UK over the course of nearly 20 years I was asked by random interviews to do "fizzbuzz" which I always refused to do out of principle. The prob…

I’m not taking offense but don’t think for a moment that you know me. I don’t “gatekeep” and don’t in fact ask leetcode questions when I interview. But I have been a software engineer for 20+ years in every possible role from a basic IC up to CTO, been part of small teams, run huge teams been a cog in a massive machine to being “the guy who has to do everything” and I am perfectly happy to do leetcode in an interview…

I don't think I said I know you. Cheers for your reply , maybe my perspective is wrong.

Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#116

Post by swat535 »

mettamage wrote: post #85
m_rpn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue for me is that even if you have strong computer science fundamentals and lots of experience most of the time you won't be able to come up with an advanced optimized algorithm (that took years of research) on the spot, which is what is often required in these kind of interviews. Even if you manage the average kid that grinded leetcode for years will appear a better candidate than you, maybe he really is, but…

To be fair, while grinding shows opportunity of having enough time. It also shows determination and grit. I have determination and grit in other areas of life, but when it comes to leetcoding, I find it hard to have it. I find it much more easily to have grit when it comes to dating/romance. I already feel it, it's a few orders of magnitude higher, at least on an emotional level that is. The strong motivator there is…

You are just justifying pointless time wasting on Leetcode questions as "grit".. There is a world of difference between perusing deeper connections with a potential life-long partners than doing Leetcode..

I mean if it works for you and you enjoy doing it, great but don't pretend it's for a higher purpose. It just sounds like Kool-Aid.

We don't demand surgeons to grind Leetcode for their interviews, nor we ask lawyers to solve trick gotcha questions.

Other industries recognize and value professional experience and are able to determine a candidate's quality with sane interview processes.

Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#117

Post by billy99k »

syspec wrote: post #114
billy99k wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cybersecurity. I'm on the offensive side. All tests I've taken have been relevant to the job.

It's the kind of field where you can talk yourself up more easily

Huh? If you don't have the skillset, you won't get very far.

Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#118

Post by sfn42 »

everdrive wrote: post #92
sfn42 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends entirely on the problem they ask you to solve. All the technical interviews I've done have been completely reasonable basic programming tasks. Yet I always get really good feedback, did one a few weeks ago where the interviewer said it was the best technical interview he'd had in years. I felt like it could have gone better, and like I could have done just as well years ago when I was fresh out of univer…

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I think we probably disagree when it comes to leetcode. One thing I'll note is that in my experience, companies implicitly do not _want_ you to work at too high of a level; they fill up your hours until there is no free time, prevent you from returning to older tasks or projects to improve them, and more or less require "good enough" solutions at best. This isn't necessar…

I've never really done much leetcode. Might have done a problem here and there for fun but probably less than 10 total.

I'm not sure whether people literally mean leetcode when they say leetcode, but I should probably clarify that I'm not specifically talking about problems from the leetcode website. I did once get a sort of quiz from codingame to complete at home(took like 15 minutes or so), but other than that I think my interviewers have made up their own problems.

One was a class responsible for storing car data, being able to get them by plate number and stuff like that. Recently I did one where I basically implemented a tax calculator, calculating bracket tax and stuff like that. The general format has been a class with method stubs, and a corresponding test class. The assignment is basically make the tests pass.

I think that's a good format. Allows you to write some real logic, sort of similar to what we do in daily work. The tax calculator was a bit math-heavy but still required some logic and some creative use of data structures to store tax brackets without hardcoding everything etc.

Re: It is humiliating to have to do LeetCode grinding for

#119

Post by mettamage »

swat535 wrote: post #116
mettamage wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, while grinding shows opportunity of having enough time. It also shows determination and grit. I have determination and grit in other areas of life, but when it comes to leetcoding, I find it hard to have it. I find it much more easily to have grit when it comes to dating/romance. I already feel it, it's a few orders of magnitude higher, at least on an emotional level that is. The strong motivator there is…

You are just justifying pointless time wasting on Leetcode questions as "grit".. There is a world of difference between perusing deeper connections with a potential life-long partners than doing Leetcode.. I mean if it works for you and you enjoy doing it, great but don't pretend it's for a higher purpose. It just sounds like Kool-Aid. We don't demand surgeons to grind Leetcode for their interviews, nor we ask lawyer…

Partially agree, partially disagree. Won’t get into it.

I enjoyed your comment though! It’s food for thought

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