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Why do developers complain so much about hard interview questions that can be supposedly be gamed by studying to the test? Every high paying industry heavily en

Why do developers complain so much about hard interview questions that can be supposedly be gamed by studying to the test? Every high paying industry heavily engages in gatekeeping, because the number of people who want to make 400k/year is far larger than the number of 400k/year jobs available. The traditional forms of gatekeeping involve requiring that people have the right personal/familial connections, or have an elite school pedigree (finance, consulting, law), or that they spend several years and half a million dollars in post-college schooling (medicine). The tech industry's preferred form of gatekeeping is asking people to do algorithmic puzzles, which is far tamer and less exclusionary than what other industries do. If you believe that the only thing standing between you and 400k/year is a few dozen hours of practicing leetcode, why are you whining about it instead of taking advantage of the situation to wildly enrich yourself with a fairly modest amount of effort?

Gimpei 8y ago
I think because some people can't train themselves up through the gate. This is not because they can't figure out the leetcode problems, but because they have more difficulty dealing with the kind of pressure you see in interviewing situations than others.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  If you have a hard time working under pressure, there's sadly not many viable alternatives. Any process that has a very low % success rate will inherently be stressful. Also, being able to perform under stress could be seen as a desirable skill too.
  - erik_seaberg 8y ago
    If you can't handle stress, you can't join an oncall rotation, which would have ruled out eleven years of my career so far.
  - pseudalopex 8y ago
    The pressures of this kind of interview have very little in common with the pressures of the job.
  - TrinaryWorksToo 8y ago
    It's not that I can't perform under stress. It's that I can't perform under the specific stress of being in a new location having 5 hour one on one interviews because I have Aspergers
drblast 8y ago
I already make plenty of money in my current job and I'm fairly happy. If I wanted to switch companies I'd be interviewed as if I were a recent college graduate. Anyone experienced and good at this isn't going to have time for that because they're not going to jump through hoops to increase a 275k salary to a 300k one. So what the interview selects for are people desperate enough to study hard enough to fool the interviewer. And this is one reason the industry leans heavily toward young privileged male candidates and loves to reinvent the wheel every six months.
- esoterica 8y ago
  If you're experienced and good you can do way better than 300k at some companies. Also if you think spending a few hours practicing leetcode makes you desperate, wait till you hear the hoops people have to jump through to become a doctor or investment banker.
  - Chyzwar 8y ago
    There are more interesting things to do. Coding your side project, contributing to the opensource project, learning a new programming language or even reading random GitHub project code and issue trackers. All of these activities help to improve your programming skills more than leetcode. If I am making max for my local area and I am not willing to relocate, why would I waste time for interview preparation?
    - ggggtez 8y ago
      I don't know what you are replying to the parent poster at all. If you don't want to interview for a job in a new location, or for more money... then the advice to study isn't meant for you. Like, sure some people find studying fun for it's own sake, but the purpose of studying is for the interview which you just said you don't even want to do.
      - Chyzwar 8y ago
        What I am saying that there are more interesting activities that would actually improve your skills. Leetscode and drilling interview questions are waste of time even if you are looking for a job. There are places that hire based on take-home interview, onsite pair programming or based on your portfolio/recommendation.
cdoxsey 8y ago
A few reasons: 1. At least for me, I didn't know the game going in so I wasn't prepared for it. A lot of folks I interview don't either (though its becoming less common... almost everyone is somewhat prepared for it now), and I feel bad for them. 2. I feel like I'm a competent developer, but I'm not very good at the game, even when I practice and study a lot for it. I can barely eek through the process. And at least for me, I don't have a wide, general set of skills... I'm kind of only good at writing code, so when these artificial barriers are erected, I see future job prospects disappearing, and I don't really know what to do about it. 3. Perhaps it goes hand in hand with engineering, but I criticize absurdities an inefficiencies in business all the time. There's something particularly hypocritical about an industry which prides itself on meritocracy developing a process which not only fails to recognize qualified developers but often actively works against them. 4. I think we actually need more engineers. A lot more. Gatekeeping is preventing this from happening, leading to a general population wholly unequipped to understand and maintain the software that's taking over their lives. Programming should be a lot more like reading and a lot less like specialized medicine.
ascorbic 8y ago
How about gatekeeping via how good they are at the job?

Gimpei 8y ago

I think because some people can't train themselves up through the gate. This is not because they can't figure out the leetcode problems, but because they have more difficulty dealing with the kind of pressure you see in interviewing situations than others.

ehsankia 8y ago
If you have a hard time working under pressure, there's sadly not many viable alternatives. Any process that has a very low % success rate will inherently be stressful. Also, being able to perform under stress could be seen as a desirable skill too.
- erik_seaberg 8y ago
  If you can't handle stress, you can't join an oncall rotation, which would have ruled out eleven years of my career so far.
- pseudalopex 8y ago
  The pressures of this kind of interview have very little in common with the pressures of the job.
- TrinaryWorksToo 8y ago
  It's not that I can't perform under stress. It's that I can't perform under the specific stress of being in a new location having 5 hour one on one interviews because I have Aspergers

drblast 8y ago

I already make plenty of money in my current job and I'm fairly happy. If I wanted to switch companies I'd be interviewed as if I were a recent college graduate. Anyone experienced and good at this isn't going to have time for that because they're not going to jump through hoops to increase a 275k salary to a 300k one. So what the interview selects for are people desperate enough to study hard enough to fool the interviewer. And this is one reason the industry leans heavily toward young privileged male candidates and loves to reinvent the wheel every six months.

esoterica 8y ago
If you're experienced and good you can do way better than 300k at some companies. Also if you think spending a few hours practicing leetcode makes you desperate, wait till you hear the hoops people have to jump through to become a doctor or investment banker.
- Chyzwar 8y ago
  There are more interesting things to do. Coding your side project, contributing to the opensource project, learning a new programming language or even reading random GitHub project code and issue trackers. All of these activities help to improve your programming skills more than leetcode. If I am making max for my local area and I am not willing to relocate, why would I waste time for interview preparation?
  - ggggtez 8y ago
    I don't know what you are replying to the parent poster at all. If you don't want to interview for a job in a new location, or for more money... then the advice to study isn't meant for you. Like, sure some people find studying fun for it's own sake, but the purpose of studying is for the interview which you just said you don't even want to do.
    - Chyzwar 8y ago
      What I am saying that there are more interesting activities that would actually improve your skills. Leetscode and drilling interview questions are waste of time even if you are looking for a job. There are places that hire based on take-home interview, onsite pair programming or based on your portfolio/recommendation.

cdoxsey 8y ago

A few reasons: 1. At least for me, I didn't know the game going in so I wasn't prepared for it. A lot of folks I interview don't either (though its becoming less common... almost everyone is somewhat prepared for it now), and I feel bad for them. 2. I feel like I'm a competent developer, but I'm not very good at the game, even when I practice and study a lot for it. I can barely eek through the process. And at least for me, I don't have a wide, general set of skills... I'm kind of only good at writing code, so when these artificial barriers are erected, I see future job prospects disappearing, and I don't really know what to do about it. 3. Perhaps it goes hand in hand with engineering, but I criticize absurdities an inefficiencies in business all the time. There's something particularly hypocritical about an industry which prides itself on meritocracy developing a process which not only fails to recognize qualified developers but often actively works against them. 4. I think we actually need more engineers. A lot more. Gatekeeping is preventing this from happening, leading to a general population wholly unequipped to understand and maintain the software that's taking over their lives. Programming should be a lot more like reading and a lot less like specialized medicine.

ascorbic 8y ago

How about gatekeeping via how good they are at the job?