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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

#21

Post by Salmonfisher11 »

hpenvy wrote: post #9
Salmonfisher11 wrote: post #3

[flagged]

It's a very practicable metric that enables you to show that you're worth getting a top job in interviews. It's very merit based even if that merit is less being a good SWE and more being good at problem solving + self discipline.

It's actually not. It has been shown that you can get extremely good Leetcode ratings by systematically learning their 15-20 most used patterns. This can be done easily in a sort time span. Guides how to achieve this can be found on Reddit.

Same happens to students if they start to memorize old training exams systematically. They exploit that professors and their assistants will recycle/adapt a decent amount of old questions. Doing this is cheap in terms of effort compared trying to understanding everything.

Of course people that succeed in LC tests will defend it. Gatekeeping is a natural response.

That's reason why we stopped using it and spent much effort in eliminating any possible preparability. You get highly qualified pattern matching monkeys if you offer them the stuff they are trained for.

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

#22

Post by pelorat »

zero-sharp wrote: post #6

It's true. But acting like you're above the work also doesn't help you.

When I went to interview for my first dev job (C++) all I had to say was; I know what a vtable is, I can use a profiler, debugger and I know assembly language. I was hired without having to write a single line of code.

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

#23

Post by esco27 »

This is a mix of laziness and convenience. Hiring often boils down to what’s easiest, not what’s best. Leetcode is a proxy: it quickly filters candidates and spares everyone from more effort. But if you hire based on Leetcode, you’ll get Leetcode engineers. If you hire based on track record, impact, and real-world projects, you’ll likely get someone who’s better—and actually fits the role.

If you want to do your part and can afford it, turn down any Leetcode based interviews and let them know why if they ask.

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

#24

Post by acjohnson55 »

welder wrote: post #7

I'm building https://wonderful.dev to solve this.

I like the concept.

When I worked at a small startup, I proposed and implemented an idea where instead of doing our take-home screening, applicants could instead produce a 1-pager of publicly visible representations of the achievement. Like, if someone has open-source contributions, why should they have to do a canned take-home project?

The idea was that they could select three examples to link to, and then write ~5 sentences on each for why they selected the example and what it shows about them.

The goal of the format was to cap the amount of effort on both sides, while getting valuable signal.

No one actually took us up on this during the time I was there, but I am still proud we offered the option.

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

#26

Post by Aardwolf »

> I have written more code than most people and I still will be judged for not being able to solve a coding question

Why would you fail it though if you have written more code than most people (assuming most people means most people in tech and not most people worldwide in general since most people are not software developers), and published in A* venues

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

#27

Post by ponyous »

rblatz wrote: post #16
billy99k wrote: post #2

LeetCode and similar tests are why I got out of software development as a career. I was tired of jumping through hoops on interviews.

How often were you interviewing that LeetCode interviews made you switch careers?

Anecdotally, in my 14-year career across 15+ jobs/contracts in the EU/UK, I was asked to do LeetCode only once.

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

#28

Post by zero-sharp »

odyssey7 wrote: post #10
zero-sharp wrote: post #6

It's true. But acting like you're above the work also doesn't help you.

Interviews are posturing, not work. The tweet explains all of the work that the candidate is proud to have done, and the disappointment at being judged in a posturing pageant instead.

If you're not already rich, my suggestion is to get used to the idea of passing purely formal tests. It's a really common part of life for everyone else. Sorry.

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

#29

Post by seanhunter »

If you think something you have to do in an interview is “humiliating” when all they’re asking you to do is demonstrate some skill on a whiteboard you have some self-reflection to do. I don’t personally think leetcode is that great for interviews but candidates who act like it’s above them to figure out problems etc have a serious problem. In other fields this is not only completely normal but absolutely something people embrace. I have been in music masterclasses and heard absolutely world famous musicians playing basic scales to demonstrate something, in maths solving basic problems is absolutely something people will do all the time[1]. My dad was a chemical engineer and he was always happy to get a pen and pad out and solve some problem

It’s completely ridiculous to think you’re being humiliated by being asked to solve some algorithm question or other on a whiteboard and if you think that, I implore you to change your perspective. You want a job - you should be prepared to demonstrate that you’re prepared to do things that people ask you to do.

[1] Fields medal winner James Maynard doing first year linear algebra problems on a whiteboard https://youtu.be/100Im_72xl4?si=id2Y1SwvM2ZRBCW4

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

#30

Post by almost_usual »

esco27 wrote: post #23

This is a mix of laziness and convenience. Hiring often boils down to what’s easiest, not what’s best. Leetcode is a proxy: it quickly filters candidates and spares everyone from more effort. But if you hire based on Leetcode, you’ll get Leetcode engineers. If you hire based on track record, impact, and real-world projects, you’ll likely get someone who’s better—and actually fits the role. If you want to do your part…

Top tier companies can filter on both, the market is saturated now.
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