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Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

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Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#131

Post by IThoughtYouGNU »

bruce343434 wrote: post #129
okeuro49 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have over a decade of experience, including driving big technical change at one organisation, and was filtered out by a timed leetcode test. I put together a repository of leetcode practice, as I had a feeling that I would have bad luck on the day. They didn't look at this. The internal recruiter said it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience, but his hands were tied, as the leetcode process…

>it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience Why would this be? Old brains not being as "flexible" to think up novel solutions?

No post body was provided.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#132

Post by [deleted] »

okeuro49 wrote: post #120
hiq wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone who builds a truly novel technology solution involving hundreds of hours of effort This person should already have enough of a reputation to get a job at many companies, if their work is public enough. What do you suggest for the 99%+ other candidates?

I have over a decade of experience, including driving big technical change at one organisation, and was filtered out by a timed leetcode test. I put together a repository of leetcode practice, as I had a feeling that I would have bad luck on the day. They didn't look at this. The internal recruiter said it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience, but his hands were tied, as the leetcode process…

[deleted]

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#133

Post by sourabhv »

bruce343434 wrote: post #129
okeuro49 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have over a decade of experience, including driving big technical change at one organisation, and was filtered out by a timed leetcode test. I put together a repository of leetcode practice, as I had a feeling that I would have bad luck on the day. They didn't look at this. The internal recruiter said it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience, but his hands were tied, as the leetcode process…

>it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience Why would this be? Old brains not being as "flexible" to think up novel solutions?

If you think it’s about flexibility or brilliance or intuition or experience, you couldn’t be more wrong. Leetcode and others and purely about practice and that too recent practice, all questions follow similar patterns and if you have it fresh in memory you can write it in 5 mins. But writing it from brainstorming can take more time tha allotted.

So are top leet coders better programmers? Not really, a lot of them are colleges students who have time to practice and they are in similar competitive circle. I’ve interviewed many and couldn’t hire even one

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#135

Post by MichaelBurge »

bruce343434 wrote: post #129
okeuro49 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have over a decade of experience, including driving big technical change at one organisation, and was filtered out by a timed leetcode test. I put together a repository of leetcode practice, as I had a feeling that I would have bad luck on the day. They didn't look at this. The internal recruiter said it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience, but his hands were tied, as the leetcode process…

>it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience Why would this be? Old brains not being as "flexible" to think up novel solutions?

People straight out of college will spend a month doing 100+ Leetcode problems targeted at the companies they're aiming for. Leetcode tracks problems used at interviews, so there's a very good chance they'll see a problem identical or similar to one they've solved already, and it's just pattern recognition.

After the 3rd or 4th time doing this, practicing the same problems just to pass interviews isn't very appealing, especially if you've saved money and can do something more interesting.

You could try to "wing it" and derive it on the spot, but you'll be outcompeted by someone doing a lookup of a solution + alternate solutions from cache.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#136

Post by pojzon »

Dowwie wrote: post #75

Someone who builds a truly novel technology solution involving hundreds of hours of effort gets filtered out of an interview involving contrived scenarios. You may have built the next generation X, but given an array of strings and a fixed width, can you format the text such that each line has exactly maxWidth characters and is fully justified -- in the next 30 minutes? Maybe you should have cultivated that skillset…

This reminds me of creator of „brew” who got declined by Google because he couldnt write a reverse binary tree search in 1h.

Dont mind that half of Google is using his work for free.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#137

Post by rat9988 »

sai_c wrote: post #116
hiq wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone who builds a truly novel technology solution involving hundreds of hours of effort This person should already have enough of a reputation to get a job at many companies, if their work is public enough. What do you suggest for the 99%+ other candidates?

> This person should already have enough of a reputation to get a job at many companies, if their work is public enough. But then why do people with that kind of reputation still (at certain companies) have to jump through these hoops? https://www.theregister.com/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our... > What do you suggest for the 99%+ other candidates? What about (instead of forcing a months long decision process upon…

> But then why do people with that kind of reputation still (at certain companies) have to jump through these hoops?

They don't. Your link is not about the interview.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#138

Post by azemetre »

bruce343434 wrote: post #129
okeuro49 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have over a decade of experience, including driving big technical change at one organisation, and was filtered out by a timed leetcode test. I put together a repository of leetcode practice, as I had a feeling that I would have bad luck on the day. They didn't look at this. The internal recruiter said it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience, but his hands were tied, as the leetcode process…

>it kept happening for seniors and people with a lot of experience Why would this be? Old brains not being as "flexible" to think up novel solutions?

Nah, it’s just that LC problems take practice to get good at. Similar to weight lifting you wouldn’t expect to bench 250 lbs your first week, but after training and making progress you’ll get there (or close).

If you’ve never done LC (or any competitive programming) you’ll struggle. Practice more and you’ll recognize the dozen or so patterns.

Also LC is not “novel,” maybe at the time when the algorithm was first devised but not when you have 20 minutes to solve one.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#139

Post by UncleMeat »

pojzon wrote: post #136
Dowwie wrote: post #75

Someone who builds a truly novel technology solution involving hundreds of hours of effort gets filtered out of an interview involving contrived scenarios. You may have built the next generation X, but given an array of strings and a fixed width, can you format the text such that each line has exactly maxWidth characters and is fully justified -- in the next 30 minutes? Maybe you should have cultivated that skillset…

This reminds me of creator of „brew” who got declined by Google because he couldnt write a reverse binary tree search in 1h. Dont mind that half of Google is using his work for free.

That wasn’t actually true. He later said that he wasn’t asked to invert a binary tree.

Also, nobody at google is using homebrew for work.

Re: Stop Interviewing with Leet Code

#140

Post by dzyanis »

Let's separate an idea from implementation. It really depends from how to conduct such interviews. A good example is Google and Bolt. Both use it but differently. And for me personally in both companies it showed clearly all my shortcomings. Even when I known how to solve the task in the best way and wrote code on a board which you can compile. And to be honest I have the same shortcomings when I solve problems bigger or harder. You know, unlike many others this experience was clear and useful for me. It needs practice but I like it.
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