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Algorithms and Data Structures don't measure either of those things. General IQ is not measured by very specific technical problems. Nor is learning something s
by midev 6y ago
Algorithms and Data Structures don't measure either of those things. General IQ is not measured by very specific technical problems. Nor is learning something specific an indication of "grit".
It's a proxy for interviewers to jerk their ego.
- phonebucket 6y ago> General IQ is not measured by very specific technical problems. I do not see data and algorithm interviews as very specific technical problems. I do not have a computer science background, and have been able to bring myself up to speed to the general level expected without too much hassle. I don't think I'm particularly special. I just searched and spent some time learning this stuff over a few weekends. If you are serious about a career, I don't really think that this is too much of an ask.
- dominotw 6y ago> It's a proxy for interviewers to jerk their ego. Interviewers don't have choice here. Interviewers aren't free to come up with their own method. So this is not a valid explanation.
- midev 6y agoWhat? I'd go so far as to say this is universally incorrect. Having interviewed hundreds of people at multiple companies, at every level (intern to director), I have never been told what technical questions to ask....
- dominotw 6y agobecause if everyone is asking whatever they want there is no way to compare one candidate to another. Most companies require interviewers to pick a question from their internal 'question bank'
- midev 6y ago> because if everyone is asking whatever they want there is no way to compare one candidate to another. That's obviously not true.... > Most companies require interviewers to pick a question from their internal 'question bank' Again, having worked at some fairly big and respected companies, this has never been the case. I'm not interviewing for rote candidates. Everyone is different. Ergo, the questions are different. I could never imagine hiring senior developers and security engineers with questions from a "question bank". If you're just doing boilerplate, you're probably getting very sub-par employees.
- dominotw 6y ago> Again, having worked at some fairly big and respected companies, this has never been the case. https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-experience?currentPage=1&orderBy=hot&query= https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-experience?currentPag... Please take a look at these. I recently interviewed at FB and I got 2 questions in phone screen that were from leetcode with FB tag. > Everyone is different. Ergo, the questions are different. Facebook is running interview factory, they just don't have time to customize interview for each candidate. Their own recruiter told me to practise questions from leetcode tagged with facebook. I agree with you re your reasons for not using a 'question bank' but thats just not the realty.
- noema 6y agoDoes leetcode have some partnership with these companies or something? They're basically forcing you to pay their subscription fee to be competitive in in the candidate pool.
- tanilama 6y agoIt isn't this black and white It can be both From my experience, when you have a big pool of candidates, the ones that pass not necessarily super stars, but they tend to perform at a relative stable level.
- midev 6y agoNo, it is black and white. Just because you have lots of candidates doesn't mean you need to pick sub-par questions. Interview for the skills you actually need. If the person isn't implementing algorithms and data structures from scratch, it's a shit question. Why would you ask questions that don't match the actual work they'll be doing? If they will be doing this work, then obviously it's a fair question. See, black and white.
- linza 6y agoI disagree with that comment, based on my experience. > Why would you ask questions that don't match the actual work they'll be doing? As an interviewer, and likely peer or manager of the potential new hire, I want to understand growth potentials as well, so I want to challenge you during the interview. In my particular situation, there are so many candidates, and so many mediocre ones, we needed to raise the bar, and it served us well.
- colinmhayes 6y agoAnswering data structure/algorithm questions is absolutely meant as a measure of grit. It takes perhaps hundreds of hours of leetcode grinding to be able to quickly answer any problem which might come up in an interview. The point is to find out how committed applicants are.
- midev 6y agolol that you're looking for people that grind leetcode
- hackinthebochs 6y agoIQ is a measure of mental flexibility independent of context. Being able to solve tricky algorithm problems is a measure of mental flexibility in the context of programming. The two are strongly correlated. Of course, the test is confounded by a baseline of programming and CS knowledge.
- woeirua 6y agoThis is absolutely not true. I have seen amazing scientists and engineers get turned down by FAANG companies because they did not happen to study particular algorithms that were featured in that day's set of questions, and mediocre engineers fly through because they put in more time studying, or perhaps got lucky with the subset of technical questions that were asked.
- hackinthebochs 6y agoYes, such tests are subject to a certain amount of gaming and prior knowledge. But that doesn't invalidate the fact that they are correlated with raw intelligence.
- linza 6y agoI agree with the comment you were replying to. There will always be outliers, but testing prowess in technical problem solving and grit correlates well enough with the job of a software engineer. The "amazing scientist" maybe was not a good culture fit, or, yes, the interview was botched. Good candidates are so good that they often enough compensate for bad interviews. Sure it means we sometimes don't hire the best, but that's better IME than sometimes hiring a not so good candiate.