I feel like if I'm being asked this in an interview, they're not asking me to use a constraint solver, they're asking me to _write_ a constraint solver. Just for a specific constraint problem, not a more general constraint solver.
This. Literally every problem in NP can be cast as a constraint problem. The question of whether a solver is the right solution varies a lot depending on the application, and in an interview , it’s almost by definition not the right solution. They can also be dreadfully slow (and typically are) compared to just a simple dynamic program.
LeetCode problems typically are in P. The challenge is finding out why.
But why stop there? Why not test candidates with problems they have never seen before? Or problems similar to the problems of the organization hiring? Leetcode mostly relies on memorizing patterns with a shallow understanding but shows the candidates have a gaming ability. Does that imply quality in any way? Some people argue that willing to study for leetcode shows some virtue. I very much disagree with that.
> Leetcode mostly relies on memorizing patterns Math is like that as well though. It's about learning all the prior axioms, laws, knowing allowed simplifications, and so on.
In the same way that writing and performing a new song is "just memorizing prior patterns and law"
or that writing a new book is the same.
I.e. it's not about that. Like sure it helps to have a base set of shared language, knowledge, and symbols, but math is so much more than just that.
Its not really memorizing solutions. Yes you can get quite far by doing so but follow ups will trip people up. However if you have memorized it and can answer follow ups, I dont see a problem with Leetcode style problems. Problem solving is about pattern matching and the more patterns you know and can match against, the better your ability to solve problems. Its a learnable skill and better to pick it up now. Persona…
Few people are in both circles of "can memorize answers" and "dont understand what they are doing". You would need "photographic" memory
It's bizarre because I see the opposite.
Most people memorize and cargo cult practices with no deeper understanding of what they are doing.
My biggest problem with leetcode type questions is that you can't ask clarifying questions. My mind just doesn't work like most do, and leetcode to some extent seems to rely on people memorizing leetcode type answers. On a few, there's enough context that I can relate real understanding of the problem to, such as the coin example in the article... for others I've seen there's not enough there for me to "get" the ques…
> you can't ask clarifying questions Which isn't that the main skill actually being tested? How the candidate goes about solving problems? I mean if all we did was measure peoples' skills at making sweeping assumptions we'd likely end up with people who oversimplify problems and all of software would go to shit and get insanely complex... Is the hard part writing the lines of code or solving the problem?
Skill? LC is testing rote memorization of artificial problems you most likely never encounter in actual work.
Did you mean to type 25? 5 years ago LC challenge were as, if not more, prevalent than they are today. And a single interview for a job is not something I have seen ever after 15 years in the space (and a bunch of successful OSS projects I can showcase). I actually have the feeling it’s not as hardcore as it used to be on average. E.g. OpenAI doesn’t have a straight up LC interview even though they probably are the m…
There's an entire planet of jobs that have nothing to do with leetcode. I was talking about those, not FAANG stuff. Unfortunately I am not FAANG royalty. >Of course some still do, like Anthropic were you have to have a perfect score to 4 leetcode questions, automatically judged with no human contact, the worst kind of interview. Should be illegal honestly.
It might be illegal; certainly if you can show that LC is biased against a protected class, then there would be grounds for a lawsuit.
>The LC interviews are like testing people how fast they can run 100m after practice Ah, but, the road to becoming good at Leetcode/100m sprint is: >a slow arduous never ending jog with multiple detours and stops along the way Hence Leetcode is a reasonably good test for the job. If it didn't actually work, it would've been discarded by companies long ago. Barring a few core library teams, companies don't really care…
But why stop there? Why not test candidates with problems they have never seen before? Or problems similar to the problems of the organization hiring? Leetcode mostly relies on memorizing patterns with a shallow understanding but shows the candidates have a gaming ability. Does that imply quality in any way? Some people argue that willing to study for leetcode shows some virtue. I very much disagree with that.
To play the devils advocate, being able to memorize patterns and recognize which patterns apply to a given problem is extremely valuable. Tons of software dev is knowing the subset of algorithms, data structures, and architecture that apply to a similar problem and being able to adapt it.
5 years ago you'd have a project like that, talk to someone at a company for like 30m-1hr about it, and then get an offer.
Not sure if that's a typo. 5 years ago was also pretty LC-heavy. Ten years ago it was more based on Cracking the Coding Interview. So i'd guess what you're referring to is even older than that.
Oh my god Becky, there's even a rocket emoji in the server console logs! Should I also be "honest" about tab-completion? Where do you draw the line? Maybe I should be punished for having an internet connection too. Using AI for docker/readme's/simple scaffolding I would have done anyways ? Oh the horror! There was no lying because there was no discussion or mention of AI at all. Had they asked me, I'd have happily to…
You have that you’re the founder of an AI company in your hacker news profile, and your take home looks completely vibe coded. Why in the world are you surprised that a hiring manager is a little suspicious about your coding skills? Given what you’ve said in your other comments, it seems like you used AI in a way that I wouldn’t have a problem with but just briefly looking through I can see how it would look suspicio…
That's all well and good. Totally ask me about AI, I can talk a lot about it. Don't however, make me go through 99% of the interview process up until the very last stage (spanning weeks), and throw a live test in my face, and then have the hiring manager clarify that it's about "vibe coding paranoia". It negates the entire reason I did the take-home assignment.
The LC interviews are like testing people how fast they can run 100m after practice, while the real job is a slow arduous never ending jog with multiple detours and stops along the way. But yeah that's the game you have to play now if you want the top $$$ at one of the SMEGMA companies. I wrote (for example) my 2D game engine from scratch (3rd party libs excluded) https://github.com/ensisoft/detonator but would not b…
5 years ago you'd have a project like that, talk to someone at a company for like 30m-1hr about it, and then get an offer.
> 5 years ago you'd have a project like that, talk to someone at a company for like 30m-1hr about it, and then get an offer.
Based on my own experiences, that was true 25 years ago. 20 years ago, coding puzzles were now a standard part of interviewing, but it was pretty lightweight. 5 years ago (covid!) everything was leet-code to get to the interview stage.
My biggest problem with leetcode type questions is that you can't ask clarifying questions. My mind just doesn't work like most do, and leetcode to some extent seems to rely on people memorizing leetcode type answers. On a few, there's enough context that I can relate real understanding of the problem to, such as the coin example in the article... for others I've seen there's not enough there for me to "get" the ques…
The LC interviews are like testing people how fast they can run 100m after practice, while the real job is a slow arduous never ending jog with multiple detours and stops along the way. But yeah that's the game you have to play now if you want the top $$$ at one of the SMEGMA companies. I wrote (for example) my 2D game engine from scratch (3rd party libs excluded) https://github.com/ensisoft/detonator but would not b…
> SMEGMA companies
Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, I'm guessing... but, what are the other two?