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I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

nelson.cloud

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Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#321

Post by John23832 »

koolba wrote: post #131
369548684892826 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fact that there is a standardized test in my mind does the opposite and makes the process much fairer The problem isn't standardized tests, it's that leetcode questions are about having the time to have learnt the answer beforehand, rather than raw ability for problem solving.

> The problem isn't standardized tests, it's that leetcode questions are about having the time to have learnt the answer beforehand, rather than raw ability for problem solving. This sounds like you want to penalize students who studied for the exams. Or at least not reward them. Like all interview formats, it’s a proxy for understanding if the prospect would be able to get the work done and be a good fit with the re…

Why should a job be an exam? For someone who has worked at both FAANGS and startup, I've never found a job that remotely matches a leetcode problem.

Most companies are building products anyway.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#322

Post by valicord »

dinobones wrote: post #6

Leetcode style interviews probably serve two functions: 1) A way to suppress wages and job mobility for SWE. Who wants to switch jobs when it means studying for a month or two? Also, if you get unlucky and some try hard drops an atomic LC hard bomb on you now you have an entire company you can no longer apply to for a year. 2) A way to mask bias in the process while claiming that it’s a fair process because everyone…

> I will ask you verbatim one of those quad tree/number theory/inclusion exclusion principle questions

Why don't you list them here to illustrate your point?

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#323

Post by _cenw »

lupusreal wrote: post #127
dinobones wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take issue with it because Leetcode gives tech people a fake feel good, “yeah but at least it’s fair” illusion, when really it’s probably just as biased as any other hiring method. This is ironic considering these companies have forced mandatory DEI seminars (which I have no problem with btw), inclusive language, #EveryoneCanCode, and so on. But despite all this, you end up with teams and organizations that are 99%…

> This is ironic considering these companies have forced mandatory DEI seminars (which I have no problem with btw), inclusive language, #EveryoneCanCode, and so on. I really do wonder what those sanctimonious sermons are meant to accomplish. People who are already ideologically aligned with them won't learn anything new and may just resent it, while people who aren't aligned won't become aligned as a result of that "…

You'd be surprised how much self-perception and reality can differ. Lots of types that think they're the best allies ever and then show a total lack of empathy (especially if someone's different in their immediate family) that'd need a reality check.

Though usually the intersection of people running DEI initiatives and those people make a large set. Assimilated gay people love talking shit about how trans people make "us" look bad.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#324

Post by skeeter2020 »

jkukul wrote: post #190
emodendroket wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure anyone determined to do so can act unfairly regardless of what process is in place, but the fact that there is a standardized test in my mind does the opposite and makes the process much fairer. Assuming a fair-minded interviewer, the process gives a chance to a candidate whose resume may have less vaunted names on it to demonstrate their skill. I'm quite sure that I'd never have had some of the opportunitie…

A leet-code test would be much more standardized if candidates could solve it at home. Just send me a link to the quiz and let me solve it within a specified time frame. I've done tests like this for some companies. It felt a lot fairer and more closely resembling the actual work environment than live leet-code interviews, with biased interviewer(s) and a stress factor that's not a part of the actual job.

As a hiring manager I HATE leet-code tests, and they do nothing to differentiate candidates, but a take home in the era where people run chatGPT beside the interview window, or have someone else do the interview for them? Not a chance. You are 100% correct that it is way more representative, but the prevalence of cheating is ridiculous.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#325

Post by johnnyanmac »

bena wrote: post #308
johnnyanmac wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because there’s only a handful of companies that pay well If this was just FAANG I wouldn't even mind it. Bigger compensation means bigger hoops to jump through, artificial or otherwise. At least those bigger companies come with interview guides. But I've been dropped Leetcode mediums on some Unity game dev jobs barely paying 40/hr with minimal benefits. Game interviews already have an absurd number of topics to try…

If you are applying for game dev jobs, C memory management, the gnarly parts of Unreal engine, vector math, and ray intersection are all things you could be doing on the job. Game dev is lower paying, less structured, and more involved than typical web dev jobs. I’d really only want to get into game dev early in my career or as an independent creator. It’s a touch exploitative.

It sure is. I could also be questionied on:

- CPU/GPU architecture

- graphics/shader programming ( I do enjoy graphics programming, but I have been asked these questions despite not applying for graphics roles)

- GPGPU

- traditional software engineering (programming patterns, architecture)

- netcode (I never applied to a network engineering position. I in fact actively avoid that part of the stack)

- general industry questions (what kinds of bugs can appear on shipping build that may not appear on debug builds?)

- a myriad of gameplay programming paradigms

- coding tests in Unity, despite applying for an unreal engine position (this has in fact happened twice now. I know Unity, but come on: can you imagine getting a javascript test for a c++ position?).

I've been asked all of these in some capacity over the years. At what point is it on me for not being some sort of omni net/graphics/engine gamedev that can answer any question on the fly, and not on the company for being paranoid about professionals studying for the skills they are clearly seeking? If someone can "study for your interview", why wouldn't you want that person? That's what they do on the job after all.

> I’d really only want to get into game dev early in my career or as an independent creator.

I'm already 8 years in, so a bit late for that. My plan is eventually to go indie, but I need a bit more time in my career before making that jump.

Despite the common advice c. 2022, getting a boring cushy tech job right now isn't very viable, so may as well stick to what I'm actually getting interviews for.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#326

Post by KoftaBob »

In my experience, the best kind of assessment for Software jobs is a reasonable take-home project that involves a private repo that you fork, work on adding a feature or fixing a bug, and then send a PR.

It's much closer to day to day work than code challenges are, it doesn't involve the stress factor of an interviewer staring at you while you work on a leetcode, and you can have a followup technical interview to discuss the take-home in more detail.

The most recent take-home experience like this that I saw was with Clipboard health, and I thought it was a great experience. If I remember correctly, they used Woven Teams to automate the process.

https://www.woventeams.com/

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#327

Post by skeeter2020 »

kidintech wrote: post #210
Rinzler89 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leaked on eastern forums immediately What exactly are "Eastern forums"? "Eastern" what? Europe? Asia? The world?

The most common example would be 1point3acres. I'd prefer to not be more specific; I chose the word Eastern on purpose. For DEI committees reading this: I am both eastern european and asian, so I hope to be exempt from any scrutiny.

>> I am both eastern european and asian, so I hope to be exempt from any scrutiny.

This only works if because I'm western and white I must ALWAYS be scrutinized.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#328

Post by DragonStrength »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #295
KaiserPro wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot categorically claim that LC tests are largely memorization tests rather than raw problem-solving skills If that were the case then a normal, well accomplished software engineer shouldn't need to "grind" leetcode to pass an interview. its just a cargo cult. Getting someone to do a code review is a much much better test of skill: Do they ask questions? are they kind in their assertions? At what point do th…

>If that were the case then a normal, well accomplished software engineer shouldn't need to "grind" leetcode to pass an interview. No, what this shows is that the skill range for accomplished professional software devs is absolutely massive. What these companies want is to find the tail end of this very wide distribution. Leetcode interviews do a decent job at this. If you have been coding for a decade and can't do l…

No, these engineers at FAANG companies could not solve those problems cold without having been taught how. I have worked at two, which is how I know. I have never seen a question in an interview I haven’t seen before. Many of these questions went unsolved for decades in the industry, so no, these engineers, who mostly aren’t DSA experts but distributed computing experts, could not solve them cold. I also saw how interviewers used questions to re-enforce their own biases on university, gender, or home country in these interviews.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#329

Post by vgalin »

pprotas wrote: post #291
begueradj wrote: post #257

Such interviews are made to legally discriminate against old developers. A freshly graduate student has more chance to still know this or that algorithm, and prepare for that. An old/experienced developer has dealt with plenty of real world complex problems. So much that his attention is absorbed by them, not by what is the best way to search for an element in a tree.

Age does not hinder you in solving leetcode problems

But the older you are, the more likely it is that you have built a family and have children and responsibilities outside of work. You cannot necessarily afford to spend time studying (problems untied to the real world) as much as someone younger I guess.

Re: I am sick of LeetCode-style interviews

#330

Post by johnnyanmac »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #301
johnnyanmac wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's also the implication here that Americans rarely cheat. They aren't as public because English is under a microscope, but there are definitely answer banks if you know the right person and can fork over the cash. If it's anything like High School/College, the sad part is these kinds of people could probably do well in interviews regardless. These answer banks are simply the difference between an A and an…

> And sadly the current market seems to only want A+ candidates. You mean the current FAANG market paying top dollar. I know plenty of unknown companies taking B candidates because they aren't paying top dollar (in Europe at least) >Who's fault is it really? The governments and central banks for devaluing the currency post-2008 with their zero interest rates, causing the value of savings and wages to plummet and the…

> I know plenty of unknown companies taking C-/B+ candidates because they aren't paying top dollar.

in my experience: not these days. And I work in games, so "top dollar" was never in question.

>My 0.02$

That's a fair take. Tech in some ways was indeed a necessity with a huge reach, so I don't think the overhype was the difference between being a trillion dollar industry and a million dollar one. But tech would probably still be a billion dollar industry without all the factors you mentioned.

Games... well, stability was never a factor, and I knew that going in. It's a shame they are doing the exact same pump and dump schemes tech has fallen into. And it's not like layoffs were uncommon after a project finished; it's just that they are doing it purely for better looking earnings call instead of "we cannot keep funding studios anymore".

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