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Routinely failing a simple tech screen is not a symptom of stretching. It’s a symptom of probably not being in a place to be blogging interview lessons for oth

Routinely failing a simple tech screen is not a symptom of stretching. It’s a symptom of probably not being in a place to be blogging interview lessons for others. Totally credit to this dude for putting himself out there, but I think he’s radically miscalibrated to be doing so in a way where he’s had this experience and is off handing out advice. To extend a more accessible analogy, in universities, the people who pass the course the first time are picked as tutors. Not the people who re-took it seven times because it was a stretch for them. > it might be because they're trying to do harder things I literally work on one of the, if not the, top team for what I do in the entire industry. I’ve failed plenty of times. I’ve never failed a basic tech screen though... They’re not supposed to be hard!

dominotw 6y ago
> They’re not supposed to be hard! how are you defining hard? do you have an example? i got this in my tech screen from a mid tier company in bay area https://leetcode.com/problems/k-similar-strings/ https://leetcode.com/problems/k-similar-strings/ they were expecting a perfect solution because successful candidates in the past gave them a perfect solution. do you consider that 'hard' in 45 min phone screen?
- grumple 6y ago
  "Nah bro, interviewing is easy. Here's a link to a leetcode hard question, you don't think this is actually hard do you? Please answer so I can make you feel dumb." I'd like to offer to do a phone screen with you. I'll pick a hard problem I've solved on leetcode, codingame, or google foobar and see how you do on it.
  - dominotw 6y ago
    not quite sure what you are talking about. I found that question "hard" and failed the interview.
    - grumple 6y ago
      I'm sorry, I thought you were suggesting that this was an easy problem. I misunderstood.
- djcapelis 6y ago
  Well first off I think any company using leetcode as a screen for their candidates is out of the minds. (It seems to be a popular way to be out of their mind but that doesn’t make it a good idea. :)) But implementing a trivial unoptimized solution for the problem you linked is feasible enough in 45 minutes. Talking idly through how one might tweak the algorithm to optimize, or adopting an optimized algorithm if one occurs to you as you’re implementing the basic one also seems fine. If they want a tested, optimized, and implemented novel solution in that period, they are testing for people who grind leetcode and not people who are good engineers. I would have likely saved myself the time by not applying to a company like that in the first place! Screens should generally focus on finding candidates worth talking more with. Leetcode exercises are low value for that. If you want to learn anything, don’t work there. Work at a place that selects for better talent than mindlessly picking leetcode exercises as a screener. You will learn more, you will be at a company that does better, etc. (I have never screened a candidate using leetcode. I have never been screened using leetcode. The one time someone tried to screen me using stupid questions like this I finished our session and promptly terminated the process when they called me back for a future round because while I may have passed their screen they emphatically did not pass my screen. I don’t study for interviews, nor do I expect people who I interview to study. Nothing I’m going to ask is something you can cram about the night before. This isn’t a college midterm.)

dominotw 6y ago

> They’re not supposed to be hard! how are you defining hard? do you have an example? i got this in my tech screen from a mid tier company in bay area https://leetcode.com/problems/k-similar-strings/ https://leetcode.com/problems/k-similar-strings/ they were expecting a perfect solution because successful candidates in the past gave them a perfect solution. do you consider that 'hard' in 45 min phone screen?

grumple 6y ago
"Nah bro, interviewing is easy. Here's a link to a leetcode hard question, you don't think this is actually hard do you? Please answer so I can make you feel dumb." I'd like to offer to do a phone screen with you. I'll pick a hard problem I've solved on leetcode, codingame, or google foobar and see how you do on it.
- dominotw 6y ago
  not quite sure what you are talking about. I found that question "hard" and failed the interview.
  - grumple 6y ago
    I'm sorry, I thought you were suggesting that this was an easy problem. I misunderstood.
djcapelis 6y ago
Well first off I think any company using leetcode as a screen for their candidates is out of the minds. (It seems to be a popular way to be out of their mind but that doesn’t make it a good idea. :)) But implementing a trivial unoptimized solution for the problem you linked is feasible enough in 45 minutes. Talking idly through how one might tweak the algorithm to optimize, or adopting an optimized algorithm if one occurs to you as you’re implementing the basic one also seems fine. If they want a tested, optimized, and implemented novel solution in that period, they are testing for people who grind leetcode and not people who are good engineers. I would have likely saved myself the time by not applying to a company like that in the first place! Screens should generally focus on finding candidates worth talking more with. Leetcode exercises are low value for that. If you want to learn anything, don’t work there. Work at a place that selects for better talent than mindlessly picking leetcode exercises as a screener. You will learn more, you will be at a company that does better, etc. (I have never screened a candidate using leetcode. I have never been screened using leetcode. The one time someone tried to screen me using stupid questions like this I finished our session and promptly terminated the process when they called me back for a future round because while I may have passed their screen they emphatically did not pass my screen. I don’t study for interviews, nor do I expect people who I interview to study. Nothing I’m going to ask is something you can cram about the night before. This isn’t a college midterm.)