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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

#51

Post by [deleted] »

herpdyderp wrote: post #33
Aardwolf wrote: post #26

> 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

I publish and maintain dozens of open source packages that are downloaded millions of times per year and I couldn’t off the top of my head implement a bubble sort. Because why the heck would I ever do that? The point is that LeetCode does not test the actual skill set of writing useful code, it tests how much you’ve grinded LeetCode.

[deleted]

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

#52

Post by esco27 »

almost_usual wrote: post #30
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.

That’s fair, but most software jobs aren’t at top-tier companies. HR often stays out of the process due to technical barriers, leaving engineers to handle interviews. Leetcode becomes the easiest way to offload the hassle—ironically, a self-inflicted wound on fellow engineers.

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

#53

Post by mettamage »

Sooooo...

Tangentially related

But I'm looking for leetcode buddies to grind with actually. I have around 300 questions done.

I'm not in a rush, and also, I kind of like it. The more I do it, the more it's actually fun.

Anyone wants to join me? We could form a small group.

My email is in my profile.

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

#54

Post by falcor84 »

gumjafar wrote: post #36
imbusy111 wrote: post #20

Just to give some balance here, I'll state a seemingly unpopular opinion. Personally, I have not had issues doing complex coding questions in interviews, or at work. And it becomes clear pretty quickly on the job, when your co-worker has weak computer science fundamentals. Reasoning from first principles is a very powerful technique.

To give some balance; I’ve worked with people strong in CS that suck as people and have no ability to help with product. Experience is not equally distributed given any context. Well rounded people overall have been the best to work with. Optimizing for a single variable is a very powerful technique of the stupid.

It's a bit of a strawman argument - I'm not aware of any company that hires purely based on leetcode results; they typically also include interviews focused on product/design skills and "culture fit".

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

#55

Post by hombre_fatal »

pelorat wrote: post #22
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.

Heh, that's how the interview at my first job went at a small Ruby on Rails company.

The lead developer asked me intermediate to advanced questions about Rails that you'd only know if you knew Rails. He asked me about impl details of a Rails projects on my Github. And I got the job.

I never had an interview as pleasant as that since.

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

#57

Post by foooorsyth »

remram wrote: post #39
seanhunter wrote: post #29

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 pe…

This tweet is about "grinding", eg the time-consuming prep work before interviews. I think.

All other serious endeavors require endless “grinding”. Imagine a hockey player being annoyed about being asked to tryout. Imagine whining about having to practice their skating or shooting.

Compared to many other things, software engineering requires astonishingly low prep. Your average high school baseball player has spent more time in the batting cage to earn a varsity letter than the median SF SWE has spent on leetcode

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

#59

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

Yes, always keep basic statistics in mind. Every single proxy you apply that isn't correlated to what you really want will filter-out the outliers towards the median.

And remember what the median job candidate that applies to your place looks like. Do you want to remove the people that don't look like them? If yes, you are on the clear.

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

#60

Post by sfn42 »

everdrive wrote: post #15
talldayo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of developers that aren't purely obsessed with frontend or AI-like niches find Leetcoding rote. Ultimately it's just about facing a question you are unfamiliar with and whiteboarding it with a potential employer - it's only humiliating if you've got an ego to swallow.

I think that might be a bit narrow. It's humiliating not because you need to bear your ignorance in front of a judgemental audience. (although that part certainly is not comfortable) It's humiliating because the leetcode is not actually representative of anything you'll need to know to do the job. It's an exercise which selections for who can jump through the most hoops, and doesn't really select for the actual job s…

That depends entirely on the problem they ask you to solve. All the technical interviews I've done have been completely reasonable basic programming tasks. Yet I always get really good feedback, did one a few weeks ago where the interviewer said it was the best technical interview he'd had in years. I felt like it could have gone better, and like I could have done just as well years ago when I was fresh out of university.

So that tells me that a lot of devs really suck at basic programming, I assume they're the ones joking that their job is just copying code from SO. And probably also the ones who complain about having to show that they can write code before being hired to write code.

Personally I think it's great. Easy way to show that I know my shit and separate myself from all my peers who somehow graduated with the same degree as me despite not being able to write a correct fizzbuzz after 3 years. I'll take a live coding interview any time. I know I'm good at this, don't mind proving it.

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