Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety • Hacker News Board

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#151

Post by wnmurphy » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

nefitty wrote: post #136

wnmurphy wrote: post #113

I've recently been thinking about this a lot. The single highest-leverage action I've found for myself has been to shift my goal from: A. (destination) I need to get a top-tier job at a FAANG company. to B. (process) I want to develop my ability to think structurally, so that I can enjoy spending time with code by honing an intuitive sense of the pattern language of code. The former is future-oriented, stressful, fee…

I like the mental shift that focusing on process entails. For your process goal, do you have a list of activities or tasks you do for that? Here are some of mine, although I’m unsure of relative ROI’s (maybe “return on investment” is antithetical to the process goal lol): - Read well-established repos and type the code, for example, I’m currently going through all of the React source and typing everything up as I rea…

Honestly, just spending time reading through any good code, well-maintained repos, official CTCI solutions, other people's LeetCode/CodeWars solutions, etc.

(The absolute best way I've found to learn a language's conventions and best practices is to study all of the community solutions on CodeWars)

Then I have a list to which I add any "code tropes" (i.e. using a loop to search a collection and conditionally flip a flag outside of the loop, etc.) or useful patterns (favoring early returns, etc.). This turns into a dictionary of the vocabulary of code that I just keep adding to.

Mainly it's the act of careful, patient reading that unconsciously develops your sense of conventions and ability to visualize abstraction.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#152

Post by EvilEy3 » Sun, May 02, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #139

EvilEy3 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody obliged to give you work. They gave you a task and you couldn't solve it, fair and square. I can stretch your logic even further that giving BE task to FE person is a discrimination because they don't have luxury to work on BE. Why do we discriminate against QA people who don't have luxury to work on dev jobs? Why do we discriminate against people who don't work as developers at all?

Asking someone whether or not they can do the job isn't discrimination. Asking someone if they know something basically unrelated to the job might well be. It could be designed to filter out people who wouldn't know that thing rather than filter in people who'd be better at the job. What is that if it isn't discrimination?

Having algorithmic knowledge for a job is like having a common sense. You wouldn't hire someone who can't think, would you?

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#153

Post by AlwaysRock » Mon, May 03, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

wnmurphy wrote: post #148

AlwaysRock wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What?

A transferrable principle from acting. Memorizing LC solutions is attempting to "stockpile." Instead, we should be learning the main principles, and then reacting to technical interview problems from there, rather than trying to recall the solution to the problem.

Sure. So instead of memorizing LC solutions memorize algorithms?

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#154

Post by goatcode » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

hiq wrote: post #99

goatcode wrote: post #72

More and more tech companies are beginning to hire for soft skills as a main emphasis, with basic technical skills as a given. They're tending to intentionally NOT hire l337 folks, with a lot of emphasis on avoiding the "brilliant jerk." So, if you are personally interested in the work, willing to learn, and aren't a jerk, you'll probably go further than someone who has traveling salesman memorized in 8 languages.

> if you are personally interested in the work, willing to learn, and aren't a jerk, you'll probably go further than someone who has traveling salesman memorized in 8 languages. I'm not sure how you test the first three qualities reliably in an interview. The point of leetcode interviews is that they are arguably harder to game: if you manage to write some code solving some problem, you at least memorized a solution…

>if you manage to write some code solving some problem, you at least memorized a solution and somewhat understood it

Or got someone else to do it for you.

I think you underestimate the skill of interviewers. You can learn a lot about a person from one directed conversation, if you want to.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#155

Post by hiq » Tue, May 04, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

goatcode wrote: post #154

hiq wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you are personally interested in the work, willing to learn, and aren't a jerk, you'll probably go further than someone who has traveling salesman memorized in 8 languages. I'm not sure how you test the first three qualities reliably in an interview. The point of leetcode interviews is that they are arguably harder to game: if you manage to write some code solving some problem, you at least memorized a solution…

>if you manage to write some code solving some problem, you at least memorized a solution and somewhat understood it Or got someone else to do it for you. I think you underestimate the skill of interviewers. You can learn a lot about a person from one directed conversation, if you want to.

> Or got someone else to do it for you.

I assume you're talking about cheating? That's mostly possible for remote interviews, not that easy to pull off.

> I think you underestimate the skill of interviewers. You can learn a lot about a person from one directed conversation, if you want to.

You can definitely learn a lot, but the three qualities you mentioned were:

> interested in the work, willing to learn, and aren't a jerk

If someone wants the job because of $REASONS that differ from these, they can still practice to show these traits during the interview.

You could dig deeper in their portfolio if they have one, but my point is that the 1h interview is not going to bring you much more with respect to these three criteria you mentioned.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#156

Post by say_it_as_it_is » Wed, May 05, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

nomy99 wrote: post #130

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you love about leetcode problems? Mindset makes a huge difference.

I'm a simple man, I see "Accepted" and my solution is faster and more efficient than "X%" it makes my day. Maybe I am just the type of person who just enjoys coding for fun. Also I forgot to mention, one of the reasons I started doing leetcode was our team started a new project in python. Having never written a line of code in it, being a javascript developer for most of my career, I needed the shortest path to profi…

I'm writing solutions in a couple of languages. It takes time, but helps to solidify concepts. Writing Python in a way that is compatible with statically typed languages doesn't take advantage of what Python offers but my run results lead me to believe perform better for that reason.

Re: Avoiding Leetcode Anxiety

#157

Post by goatcode » Wed, May 05, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

hiq wrote: post #155

goatcode wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you manage to write some code solving some problem, you at least memorized a solution and somewhat understood it Or got someone else to do it for you. I think you underestimate the skill of interviewers. You can learn a lot about a person from one directed conversation, if you want to.

> Or got someone else to do it for you. I assume you're talking about cheating? That's mostly possible for remote interviews, not that easy to pull off. > I think you underestimate the skill of interviewers. You can learn a lot about a person from one directed conversation, if you want to. You can definitely learn a lot, but the three qualities you mentioned were: > interested in the work, willing to learn, and aren'…

>can still practice to show these traits during the interview.

Many can, but over time that practice itself becomes evident to a good interviewer.

No process is perfect, nor can it be. But, that a few can slip through doesn't mean that all can, or do.