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Quote I've seen a lot: "Leetcode every day keeps unemployment away" Seems the best way to avoid long term unemployment in this day and age is to be "coding int

Quote I've seen a lot: "Leetcode every day keeps unemployment away" Seems the best way to avoid long term unemployment in this day and age is to be "coding interview ready" constantly. My best friend at a FAANG always tells me he dreads having to look for a job ever again - whether voluntarily or involuntarily, as he is in no way shape or form ready for coding interviews.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dominotw 6y ago
The problem with this advice is that you get good at leets but you knowledge of framworks/aws/cloud stuff gets atrophied. leets are good for FAANGs but not so useful at mid tier.
- decafninja 6y ago
  I don't know - I've encountered leetcode interviews all over the place these days. The only exception might be more recent front end interviews, which seem to do "code X in JS" questions more. But ironically the more prestigious companies like FAANG seem to do this more, while the lower tier companies are still leetcode for front end engineers.
nostrademons 6y ago
A lot of the companies I've seen actually hiring these days are doing more legit work-sample problems than Leetcode tasks. Coinbase and Stripe both have programming tasks that are clearly condensed versions of the actual work you'll be doing there. Google does too if you get a good interviewer, though it can vary a lot between interviewers. Snap, Lyft, and Facebook were all leetcode exercises - but they're ones that have been hurting more from the coronavirus recession. Leetcode is popular now because there're a bunch of tools (CoderPad/Karat for interviews and Leetcode/HackerRank for practice) that make it easy. I'm already seeing the pendulum start to swing the other way though - many of the best companies are building hiring processes tailored to their own business because they get a competitive advantage from doing so, both because they get more signal on prospective applicants and because it means interviewing does not become a transferrable skill that you can use to get multiple competing offers.
- decafninja 6y ago
  I've encountered takehome problems more often these days, but they've always been in addition to leetcode interviews, not instead of. As one example, a "mid-tier" company gave me homework to do, which I spent a lot of time and effort to do a good job. The team apparently was impressed - supposedly I had one of the best solutions, and I got to the onsite. Then the onsite had two leetcode rounds, one of which I struggled with. I got rejected. I don't know the exact reasons of course, but considering I felt the rest of the interview seemed to go great, I suspect it's the leetcode problem I failed to get the superoptimal solutino for that killed me. Nowadays my policy is to just reject any company that gives me homework to do as part of their interview loop. More often than not it's a waste of time. The exception would be companies like FAANG or other "top" companies. I'd definitely still do homework for Coinbase or Stripe. Some company I've never heard of or some non-tech company? Nope. At least studying leetcode scales horizontally across many companies.
  - dominotw 6y ago
    I ask leetcode round to be before homework. I don't do it if its other way.
- esoterica 6y ago
  The problem with realistic work-sample problems is that most of the difficulty in real life programming comes from complexity which cannot be replicated in a 1 hour technical interview. You can't really test someone on their ability to add a feature to a 10 million line code base that interacts with 50 different other modules in an interview setting. A 1 hour technical interview is going be either realistic but trivial and useless for differentiating candidates, or difficult through contrived means (like leetcode).
- dominotw 6y ago
  > Coinbase and Stripe I got asked leetcode in stripe interview.
  - nostrademons 6y ago
rb808 6y ago
I usually work many years at the same job. I think its worth talking to agents and applying for jobs each year even if you wont move, its a good way to keep track of the market and realize where you're behind, before you need to look.
latencyloser 6y ago
I think you're right and I sincerely think that this gets easier with time. Practice makes perfect and subjecting yourself to the process on the regular makes it less stressful when you actually need it to go well for you. In an unforgiving sense, I simply believe this is part of the job. I'm not saying it's right, but it is what it is. Personally, I interview at another company every 6-12 months. It's not so often as to be a significant burden, but it is frequent enough to be a reality check if I'm getting rusty or if employers are starting to expect more of me (because my seniority is increasing). Recruiters are so busy trying to find bodies you're unlikely to burn any bridges by just going through the motions to see if you're a fit. Hell, I have an ongoing relationship with a Google recruiter that I talk to every other year or so just to see what's up--I've never worked for Google, but I have interviewed there a few times, a few times with success and others without it. Worst case, they don't give you an offer and you walk away with an understanding of what your weaknesses are. Best case, you get an offer and maybe it's a better one, you now have a better job. Disclaimer: Am FAANG employee :)
ar_lan 6y ago
> My best friend at a FAANG always tells me he dreads having to look for a job ever again - whether voluntarily or involuntarily, as he is in no way shape or form ready for coding interviews. I resonate to this, coding interviews significantly annoy me. I'm a significantly better developer than I was 5 years ago, but I would have passed so many interviews 5 years ago that now I wouldn't remember where to begin, and that's because I studied relentlessly for interviews. My second to last semester of college I focused so much more on studying for interviews than my own classes, that I had the spreadsheets to make sure I would just get my C's just to ensure I could nail interviews. I did well in almost all of my interviews, and my grades completely stopped mattering. Right now, if I practiced leetcode daily, I'd think it would interfere with my work. I don't want to do it on my free time as I actually enjoy a work/life balance. I love my job, I'll study when I have to, but until that day comes I'm going to focus on becoming the best engineer I can be and continue bringing value where I'm at. Tech interviews need to change - they just reward people who studied for the points, not a true representation of who would be a great engineer for their company/team. Similar to how high school overwhelmingly rewards "passing the test" more than active learning.
- esoterica 6y ago
  I feel like there should be a decent correlation between being willing to put in effort into interviewing to progress in your career and being willing to put in effort into doing your job to progress in your career, so it makes sense for companies to select on the former trait. Also, if someone refuses to spend a few dozen hours practicing leetcode to get a 6 figure pay rise then either there is something seriously wrong with their work ethic or they like to pick stupid hills to die on. Red flag? I don't understand why people complain about leetcode so much when it's such a low bar to clear. A lot of people want $400k/year jobs at Goldman, but Goldman won't hire you unless you went to Harvard or Wharton. Shouldn't people be glad that they work in an industry where the only barrier standing between them and a $400k/year Facebook job is a few hours of interview practice?
  - arvinsim 6y ago
    Your argument make sense if only high paying companies do leetcode interviews. I think a lot of small and mid size companies are cargo culting on it too.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dominotw 6y ago

The problem with this advice is that you get good at leets but you knowledge of framworks/aws/cloud stuff gets atrophied. leets are good for FAANGs but not so useful at mid tier.

decafninja 6y ago
I don't know - I've encountered leetcode interviews all over the place these days. The only exception might be more recent front end interviews, which seem to do "code X in JS" questions more. But ironically the more prestigious companies like FAANG seem to do this more, while the lower tier companies are still leetcode for front end engineers.

nostrademons 6y ago

A lot of the companies I've seen actually hiring these days are doing more legit work-sample problems than Leetcode tasks. Coinbase and Stripe both have programming tasks that are clearly condensed versions of the actual work you'll be doing there. Google does too if you get a good interviewer, though it can vary a lot between interviewers. Snap, Lyft, and Facebook were all leetcode exercises - but they're ones that have been hurting more from the coronavirus recession. Leetcode is popular now because there're a bunch of tools (CoderPad/Karat for interviews and Leetcode/HackerRank for practice) that make it easy. I'm already seeing the pendulum start to swing the other way though - many of the best companies are building hiring processes tailored to their own business because they get a competitive advantage from doing so, both because they get more signal on prospective applicants and because it means interviewing does not become a transferrable skill that you can use to get multiple competing offers.

decafninja 6y ago
I've encountered takehome problems more often these days, but they've always been in addition to leetcode interviews, not instead of. As one example, a "mid-tier" company gave me homework to do, which I spent a lot of time and effort to do a good job. The team apparently was impressed - supposedly I had one of the best solutions, and I got to the onsite. Then the onsite had two leetcode rounds, one of which I struggled with. I got rejected. I don't know the exact reasons of course, but considering I felt the rest of the interview seemed to go great, I suspect it's the leetcode problem I failed to get the superoptimal solutino for that killed me. Nowadays my policy is to just reject any company that gives me homework to do as part of their interview loop. More often than not it's a waste of time. The exception would be companies like FAANG or other "top" companies. I'd definitely still do homework for Coinbase or Stripe. Some company I've never heard of or some non-tech company? Nope. At least studying leetcode scales horizontally across many companies.
- dominotw 6y ago
  I ask leetcode round to be before homework. I don't do it if its other way.
esoterica 6y ago
The problem with realistic work-sample problems is that most of the difficulty in real life programming comes from complexity which cannot be replicated in a 1 hour technical interview. You can't really test someone on their ability to add a feature to a 10 million line code base that interacts with 50 different other modules in an interview setting. A 1 hour technical interview is going be either realistic but trivial and useless for differentiating candidates, or difficult through contrived means (like leetcode).
dominotw 6y ago
> Coinbase and Stripe I got asked leetcode in stripe interview.
- nostrademons 6y ago

rb808 6y ago

I usually work many years at the same job. I think its worth talking to agents and applying for jobs each year even if you wont move, its a good way to keep track of the market and realize where you're behind, before you need to look.

latencyloser 6y ago

I think you're right and I sincerely think that this gets easier with time. Practice makes perfect and subjecting yourself to the process on the regular makes it less stressful when you actually need it to go well for you. In an unforgiving sense, I simply believe this is part of the job. I'm not saying it's right, but it is what it is. Personally, I interview at another company every 6-12 months. It's not so often as to be a significant burden, but it is frequent enough to be a reality check if I'm getting rusty or if employers are starting to expect more of me (because my seniority is increasing). Recruiters are so busy trying to find bodies you're unlikely to burn any bridges by just going through the motions to see if you're a fit. Hell, I have an ongoing relationship with a Google recruiter that I talk to every other year or so just to see what's up--I've never worked for Google, but I have interviewed there a few times, a few times with success and others without it. Worst case, they don't give you an offer and you walk away with an understanding of what your weaknesses are. Best case, you get an offer and maybe it's a better one, you now have a better job. Disclaimer: Am FAANG employee :)

ar_lan 6y ago

> My best friend at a FAANG always tells me he dreads having to look for a job ever again - whether voluntarily or involuntarily, as he is in no way shape or form ready for coding interviews. I resonate to this, coding interviews significantly annoy me. I'm a significantly better developer than I was 5 years ago, but I would have passed so many interviews 5 years ago that now I wouldn't remember where to begin, and that's because I studied relentlessly for interviews. My second to last semester of college I focused so much more on studying for interviews than my own classes, that I had the spreadsheets to make sure I would just get my C's just to ensure I could nail interviews. I did well in almost all of my interviews, and my grades completely stopped mattering. Right now, if I practiced leetcode daily, I'd think it would interfere with my work. I don't want to do it on my free time as I actually enjoy a work/life balance. I love my job, I'll study when I have to, but until that day comes I'm going to focus on becoming the best engineer I can be and continue bringing value where I'm at. Tech interviews need to change - they just reward people who studied for the points, not a true representation of who would be a great engineer for their company/team. Similar to how high school overwhelmingly rewards "passing the test" more than active learning.

esoterica 6y ago
I feel like there should be a decent correlation between being willing to put in effort into interviewing to progress in your career and being willing to put in effort into doing your job to progress in your career, so it makes sense for companies to select on the former trait. Also, if someone refuses to spend a few dozen hours practicing leetcode to get a 6 figure pay rise then either there is something seriously wrong with their work ethic or they like to pick stupid hills to die on. Red flag? I don't understand why people complain about leetcode so much when it's such a low bar to clear. A lot of people want $400k/year jobs at Goldman, but Goldman won't hire you unless you went to Harvard or Wharton. Shouldn't people be glad that they work in an industry where the only barrier standing between them and a $400k/year Facebook job is a few hours of interview practice?
- arvinsim 6y ago
  Your argument make sense if only high paying companies do leetcode interviews. I think a lot of small and mid size companies are cargo culting on it too.