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Leetcode Considered Harmful

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Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#71

Post by mikymoothrowa »

setuid9001 wrote: post #70

It is fascinating to me that people write books and articles on why "leetcode is harmful", just to have a justification for avoiding the hard work. It really makes me giggle. Considering that, if you are new to coding challenges, solving a hard leetcode problem can take up to or take more time, as it needs to write an article, I have to giggle even more. And it just shows me that the system works as intended in filte…

> avoiding the hard work

You sound like you haven’t been interviewing/interviewed recently.

Knowing your DSA is one thing: the task isn’t: “let’s write some code to balance this tree”

It’s the extremely cringy “John has 40 watermelons that he needs to take to Mars” style problems

If you only need to demo your understanding of the undergrad level DSA, that’s fine. But if people have to exclusively spend 3 months preparing for LC in particular that’s just madness

And in India, people are just taking this to new heights with people beginning to no-life with LC for 3 *YEARS* and skipping everything else

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#72

Post by yieldcrv »

gautamdivgi wrote: post #38
Jistern wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well argued, but you didn't address the need for tests and/or certifications to prevent companies from being overwhelmed by a flood of unqualified candidates. A doctor, lawyer, public accountant, and, well, many types of engineers obtain public or private certifications. As a result, it is much, much, much easier for hiring companies to find and interview qualified candidates. I suppose, in the "old days" universitie…

Agreed. That's what LC is filling these days. It's a kind of "qualification" in an unregulated industry. The doctor has the MD, the lawyer a JD, public accountant CPA, etc. There is no base minimum that a software engineer is required to have. Even tradesmen are required to be licensed which follows some certification. The other aspect I would mention is that the LC style interview has made it possible for a candidat…

I think everyone gets that, and are still saying go get some more inspiration.

for example, go back to training people on the job.

If the company really thinks they need someone that can hit the ground running they could have trained someone that demonstrated other experience far faster than the same 7 months the job opening was there for.

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#73

Post by frje1400 »

spacetraveler11 wrote: post #69
porcoda wrote: post #12

Happily employed and had no trouble with coding interviews myself. So my opinion isn’t from some personal angst about passing this bar: I found it easy. That said: I’m tired of the attitude that there is no effective alternative to this style of interview. You do know we hired people to do engineering jobs for many decades before the industry started cargo culting what they observed a handful of Silicon Valley mega-c…

Is there a difference in the interview process between the US and the EU? Wherever I applied to in the EU I was almost always given a small, practical programming exercise relevant to the field I was applying for and for which I had a few days to hand in my solution (usually they were quick to solve, depending on the level of polish you would put in). In the interview itself we would then discuss the implementation a…

I'm in the EU as well and while I'm quite junior, I felt like I had lots of options during my recent job search. One company gave me a practical exercise (using Spring Boot) and since I'm not familiar with that framework there was simply no way for me to complete it in a reasonable amount of time (we didn't use Spring in the CS program at uni). I had to withdraw my application.

I can't preemptively learn every framework that someone might ask you to use in these practical assignments, but I still think that I'm a fairly strong candidate (let's say top 10% of my graduating class).

I ended up at a company that asked more generic (but harder) questions that I could actually answer.

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#74

Post by golondon »

Whether Leetcode is necessary can be discussed but this person doesn't add anything to the discussion. Almost disconnected 7 paragraphs of text and the conclusion is FAANG and S & P 500 needs to find a way to assess without Leetcode.

It clearly works for them so they continue doing it and able to grow their eng organisations to thousands of engineers. Any other solution to this problem wouldn't be without its trade offs. If he really wants to contribute to tech industry he is more than welcome to found his own company and hire the way he wants, instead of saying "I don't like this FAANG find a new way!".

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#75

Post by villmann »

spacetraveler11 wrote: post #69
porcoda wrote: post #12

Happily employed and had no trouble with coding interviews myself. So my opinion isn’t from some personal angst about passing this bar: I found it easy. That said: I’m tired of the attitude that there is no effective alternative to this style of interview. You do know we hired people to do engineering jobs for many decades before the industry started cargo culting what they observed a handful of Silicon Valley mega-c…

Is there a difference in the interview process between the US and the EU? Wherever I applied to in the EU I was almost always given a small, practical programming exercise relevant to the field I was applying for and for which I had a few days to hand in my solution (usually they were quick to solve, depending on the level of polish you would put in). In the interview itself we would then discuss the implementation a…

Putting Polish in your code would indeed considerably complicate the solution.

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#76

Post by Kim_Bruning »

A lot of people say that they never encounter leetcode-like problems in real life and therefore they are silly.

Am I an outlier? I feel like I actually encounter these kinds of things fairly often, or at least the insights that they represent. (Eg: this week I'm implementing a simple path-finder to deal with a sliiightly overgrown state machine from a vendor. )

So - at least because of that - I tend to think of leetcode problems as more or less a slightly harder and more practical fizzbuzz. Complaints about leetcode do tend to mirror complaints you read about fizzbuzz.

Am I being strange here? Perhaps not. I figure there's at least two or three ways to pass a leet-code-like test: Either you just happen to have just done a bunch of marginally interesting programming somewhere in your past (which is probably what the test was designed for?), OR you did a study in college that ideally allows you to avoid the worst parts of the school of hard knocks (also ~fine), OR you explicitly practice for the test.

I suspect Goodharts law might be at work here: In some cases the measure has become the target.

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#77

Post by crsl »

I find Leetcode discussions strange. I recently changed jobs so I was preparing by doing some Leetcode problems. The actual problems I was asked during the interview process were very simple compared to what I expected. Interviewers even explicitly stated that they wanted to see how I think, and the solution didn't even have to compile. So in my experience the whole idea that «Leetcode is harmful» is overblown a little bit.

To me the value of coding interviews are knowing enough algorithms/data structures to apply and adapt them to problems, being able to quickly sketch out your idea, and explain trade-ffs.

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#78

Post by Kim_Bruning »

AstralStorm wrote: post #63
hughesjj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leetcode was created in part to be more equitable and objective. Before leetcode, we had people asking puzzles which had nothing to do with your coding abilities, like "How many balls could fit on a Boeing 747" or "If you have 9 balls, a see-saw, and one ball weighs more/less than the others, what is the minimum number of weighings to find said ball". Alma matter also used to matter a bunch more, and non-traditional…

How many times have you been asked to solve a leetcode-like problem at work? Ever?

How many times have you been asked to solve fizzbuzz at work? ;-)

And yet you can probably fluently juggle for loops and if statements to your heart's content; and can figure ways to bend them to your will (and to the problems at hand).

Similar goes for algorithms (the things leetcode questions ask about.) You'll probably never encounter the exact toy problems that get asked in an interview. The real world is always messy, you you need to be creative and imaginative. Knowing algorithms helps with that because you've already practiced, and have a head start in knowing what works and what not.

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#79

Post by postsantum »

booboofixer wrote: post #2

I took the pill (what color were you supposed to take again?). I'm prepping for the leetcode interviews. If my opinion counts for anything, don't change the interview format now. How will i get my time back that I've spent learning how to use hashmaps with java-specific syntax? My notebooks full of pseudocode are waiting to be converted into a leetcode-time-limit friendly programming language. Dont tell me it's actua…

It's a blackpill. It was all for nothing - it's officially over.

Re: Leetcode Considered Harmful

#80

Post by pneumatic1 »

I used to have a physically demanding job. I didn’t often do movements at work that were identical to what I’d do in the gym. But it was helpful to fit.

I think of leetcode as the gym and I try to do one exercise everyday outside of work.

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