4 ms·

You said, “ Rather than encouraging them to leetcode and practice for interviews, I taught them software engineering practices...”. How do you square that with

You said, “ Rather than encouraging them to leetcode and practice for interviews, I taught them software engineering practices...”. How do you square that with the reality that many software jobs have leetcode as a gate to an offer? I find myself stuck at this juncture. I am comfortable with software practices, but the reality of these sorts of interviews has me basically trying to figure out how to “hack” the coding interview portions. It’s somewhat beneficial, in terms of pushing me to improve my solving skills and data structure/algorithmic understanding, but I obviously can’t help feeling that a lot of the time I’m spending is tail-chasing, as a lot of the problems I encounter seem to be very far removed from the reality of day-to-day web development.

songzme 6y ago
"How do you square that with the reality that many software jobs have leetcode as a gate to an offer?" I face the same issue so I'm not sure, I'm hoping HN could help. Personally, I don't want to feed into the whole "just leetcode and get a job mindset" so I'm going to keep my course and follow what I believe in.
dboreham 6y ago
Think of this as a useful filter of job opportunities for you: don't accept any of those jobs.
frequentnapper 6y ago
Same here. I am right now starting to job hunt after a few years, but it's quite daunting. Just opened cracking the coding interview and the book itself recommends starting a year before to practice the problems, build a portfolio, etc.
rpedela 6y ago
The reality is that you need to practice that stuff in order to get through the first interview or two at many companies. It is most likely helping with web development even if it isn't obvious how. Kinda like how lifting weights and jogging helps someone be better at their favorite sport. Think of it as cross-training.
- nefitty 6y ago
  I think this is the best frame of mind to keep me pushing forward. Maybe once I’m at the top of the food chain I’ll be able to have some impact on these practices lol Thanks for the advice!
  - songzme 6y ago
    make sure to remember your promises to yourself. Many people get stuck in the fame and glamor and stop giving a shit.
pdubs1 6y ago
I agree-- it feels 100% like tail chasing, and not like normal problems I encounter in coding up a business-tool related full stack application. Plus, I have my own personal projects to work on. Plus, I have an open source project available for perusal. Therefore, I refuse to do leetcode/hacker rank problems for interviews. I lucked out-- For my current job offer, I simply had a 45-minute conversation, answering technical questions about a particular language, as well as behavioral questions, with three people involved in the hiring decision. Two days later they notified me with a verbal offer that they would like to hire me. Note: I also have an open source project which they reviewed during their hiring of me. So, given that success-- one interview -> hired, I am quite happy, but I know it's not the typical manner of hiring. That said, since other recruiters are contacting me regularly, I am taking interviews. However, i inform them: A. I am coding my own business project at the moment. B. I do not code for free, not even for interviews. C. I've received a verbal job offer, from an interview which did not require a coding test. D. I have an open source project featuring a few thousand lines of code which can be reviewed-- if a hiring engineer is actually interested in seeing my code. (That said, I did notice that learning to solve algorithm-efficient problems via video series has improved my skills. Just not that substantially, and not in a way that is necessary for my projects-- the code already works pretty gosh darn fast at the scale of my projects & past projects for companies which hired me-- they didn't need google or amazon level code efficiency.)

songzme 6y ago

"How do you square that with the reality that many software jobs have leetcode as a gate to an offer?" I face the same issue so I'm not sure, I'm hoping HN could help. Personally, I don't want to feed into the whole "just leetcode and get a job mindset" so I'm going to keep my course and follow what I believe in.

dboreham 6y ago

Think of this as a useful filter of job opportunities for you: don't accept any of those jobs.

frequentnapper 6y ago

Same here. I am right now starting to job hunt after a few years, but it's quite daunting. Just opened cracking the coding interview and the book itself recommends starting a year before to practice the problems, build a portfolio, etc.

rpedela 6y ago

The reality is that you need to practice that stuff in order to get through the first interview or two at many companies. It is most likely helping with web development even if it isn't obvious how. Kinda like how lifting weights and jogging helps someone be better at their favorite sport. Think of it as cross-training.

nefitty 6y ago
I think this is the best frame of mind to keep me pushing forward. Maybe once I’m at the top of the food chain I’ll be able to have some impact on these practices lol Thanks for the advice!
- songzme 6y ago
  make sure to remember your promises to yourself. Many people get stuck in the fame and glamor and stop giving a shit.

pdubs1 6y ago

I agree-- it feels 100% like tail chasing, and not like normal problems I encounter in coding up a business-tool related full stack application. Plus, I have my own personal projects to work on. Plus, I have an open source project available for perusal. Therefore, I refuse to do leetcode/hacker rank problems for interviews. I lucked out-- For my current job offer, I simply had a 45-minute conversation, answering technical questions about a particular language, as well as behavioral questions, with three people involved in the hiring decision. Two days later they notified me with a verbal offer that they would like to hire me. Note: I also have an open source project which they reviewed during their hiring of me. So, given that success-- one interview -> hired, I am quite happy, but I know it's not the typical manner of hiring. That said, since other recruiters are contacting me regularly, I am taking interviews. However, i inform them: A. I am coding my own business project at the moment. B. I do not code for free, not even for interviews. C. I've received a verbal job offer, from an interview which did not require a coding test. D. I have an open source project featuring a few thousand lines of code which can be reviewed-- if a hiring engineer is actually interested in seeing my code. (That said, I did notice that learning to solve algorithm-efficient problems via video series has improved my skills. Just not that substantially, and not in a way that is necessary for my projects-- the code already works pretty gosh darn fast at the scale of my projects & past projects for companies which hired me-- they didn't need google or amazon level code efficiency.)