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"Who comes to an interview for a tech company not having done tons of leetcode problems, studying algorithms and data structures to the limit?" Most normal dev

by wolco 6y ago

"Who comes to an interview for a tech company not having done tons of leetcode problems, studying algorithms and data structures to the limit?" Most normal developers. Spending you time on leetcode means you want to get in a faang. Most people are going for other roles.

azemetre 6y ago
Eh IDK. Leetcode type questions are starting to slip into many industries and types of companies. I recently interviewed at large finance (not trading firms, retail banking/investment) and insurance companies. They both asked LC medium/hard. I was honestly taken a back. These companies aren’t known for “high” standards and make up for the lack of interesting work with WLB (or at least it comes across like that. Just like how everyone copied google Qs a decade ago (how many toothpicks can a tree yield...). I’m fully expecting everyone to copy FAANG like interviews because someone in HR thinks it might signal better hires, and why wouldn’t you want better hires right?
- csboyer 6y ago
  Not at a FAANG company but I will ask stuff that might show up as “easy” on leet code. Examples: run length encoding problem or a bit extracting/setting question. I want to see if the candidate can formulate a simple state machine and they understand bit manipulation. I target the bit manipulation questions for firmware/embedded software roles, which very much involves reading and setting bits from hardware registers all day long.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  I work for a government and have interviewed for other governments. They have Hacker Rank stuff too.
- decafninja 6y ago
  Yup, this. While I'm sure there is some corner of the US tech industry that doesn't leetcode you during interviews, it's getting smaller and smaller. Companies that wouldn't have leetcoded you 5, 10, years ago are now doing so. The difficulty of leetcode questions is going up too. Also, takehome problems are becoming more common - not instead of leetcode interviews, but in addition to.
- kamaal 6y ago
  So if they ask the same questions at Google and same at BigInsuranceCo, why work for a lower salary at BigInsuranceCo. If the interview is the same, you are better off working at some one who pays better. As a side effect eventually there could across the board better pay.
  - azemetre 6y ago
    That's what I'm wondering myself. I've been taking more time to adequately prepare for faang, because as you said why not work for the company that pays more if the interview is nearly the same?
MattGaiser 6y ago
Especially when many people will never use them in prod. My organization asks questions about DS and algos in the interviews now. Has complexity or efficiency ever come up in a team discussion? Nope. Do we have use for high efficiency solutions at scale? Not particularly. But we judge candidates on it.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  > Has complexity or efficiency ever come up in a team discussion? Nope. Do we have use for high efficiency solutions at scale? Not particularly. Not only that - I often see atrocious code. Stuff like comparing boolean expressions against true/false. Stuff that makes me question basic competence of the person writing it.
  - cguess 6y ago
    > Stuff like comparing boolean expressions against true/false I do this sometimes if it makes the code clearer. Sometimes it's not 100% clear if you're just coming in that a function returns a boolean. Sometimes you just want to remind yourself and it sneaks past a code review. I've been coding for 20 years across a dozen plus languages, and some just handle truthiness differently and it's easier to just make sure (looking at you, Javascript). Sometimes null is false, sometimes it's not, sometimes an empty string is false, sometimes it's not. Any compiler, JIT, optimizer etc. will completely ignore the comparison anyways so there's 0 runtime issue with it.
    - alpha_squared 6y ago
      > Sometimes it's not 100% clear if you're just coming in that a function returns a boolean I'd argue the function isn't named appropriately, then. > Sometimes you just want to remind yourself and it sneaks past a code review Remind yourself what, exactly? > dozen plus languages, and some just handle truthiness differently and it's easier to just make sure (looking at you, Javascript) I'd argue that it's on the developer to know and work with the language's semantics (and I say this as someone who's not a fan of JS). Trying to write code that is nearly language agnostic in semantics will leave out a whole lot of language-specific value.
zenlot 6y ago
Agreed 100%.
UncleOxidant 6y ago
I'm just tired of the whole tech interview process. I've prepped for days for interviews only to have them fall apart because they asked something I hadn't prepped for or some kind of gotchya riddle was asked. What I've found works best is to just convince myself I really don't care either way if I get the job or not - that's when I do my best. When I really want the job, that's when I do my worst. While I'm currently not working (for money, anyway) I'm fortunate to be in a position to not have to look for work. That could change, of course (for example, if the SCOTUS strikes down the ACA I'll need to find a job with insurance). Just thinking about interviewing in this current environment makes my stomach tie up in knots. But for now, I'll be over here working on my own interesting problems.
- coin 6y ago
  A lot of the interview process is luck - the questions they ask, the person interviewing, and their mood/interest.

by wolco 6y ago

azemetre 6y ago

Eh IDK. Leetcode type questions are starting to slip into many industries and types of companies. I recently interviewed at large finance (not trading firms, retail banking/investment) and insurance companies. They both asked LC medium/hard. I was honestly taken a back. These companies aren’t known for “high” standards and make up for the lack of interesting work with WLB (or at least it comes across like that. Just like how everyone copied google Qs a decade ago (how many toothpicks can a tree yield...). I’m fully expecting everyone to copy FAANG like interviews because someone in HR thinks it might signal better hires, and why wouldn’t you want better hires right?

csboyer 6y ago
Not at a FAANG company but I will ask stuff that might show up as “easy” on leet code. Examples: run length encoding problem or a bit extracting/setting question. I want to see if the candidate can formulate a simple state machine and they understand bit manipulation. I target the bit manipulation questions for firmware/embedded software roles, which very much involves reading and setting bits from hardware registers all day long.
MattGaiser 6y ago
I work for a government and have interviewed for other governments. They have Hacker Rank stuff too.
decafninja 6y ago
Yup, this. While I'm sure there is some corner of the US tech industry that doesn't leetcode you during interviews, it's getting smaller and smaller. Companies that wouldn't have leetcoded you 5, 10, years ago are now doing so. The difficulty of leetcode questions is going up too. Also, takehome problems are becoming more common - not instead of leetcode interviews, but in addition to.
kamaal 6y ago
So if they ask the same questions at Google and same at BigInsuranceCo, why work for a lower salary at BigInsuranceCo. If the interview is the same, you are better off working at some one who pays better. As a side effect eventually there could across the board better pay.
- azemetre 6y ago
  That's what I'm wondering myself. I've been taking more time to adequately prepare for faang, because as you said why not work for the company that pays more if the interview is nearly the same?

MattGaiser 6y ago

Especially when many people will never use them in prod. My organization asks questions about DS and algos in the interviews now. Has complexity or efficiency ever come up in a team discussion? Nope. Do we have use for high efficiency solutions at scale? Not particularly. But we judge candidates on it.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
> Has complexity or efficiency ever come up in a team discussion? Nope. Do we have use for high efficiency solutions at scale? Not particularly. Not only that - I often see atrocious code. Stuff like comparing boolean expressions against true/false. Stuff that makes me question basic competence of the person writing it.
- cguess 6y ago
  > Stuff like comparing boolean expressions against true/false I do this sometimes if it makes the code clearer. Sometimes it's not 100% clear if you're just coming in that a function returns a boolean. Sometimes you just want to remind yourself and it sneaks past a code review. I've been coding for 20 years across a dozen plus languages, and some just handle truthiness differently and it's easier to just make sure (looking at you, Javascript). Sometimes null is false, sometimes it's not, sometimes an empty string is false, sometimes it's not. Any compiler, JIT, optimizer etc. will completely ignore the comparison anyways so there's 0 runtime issue with it.
  - alpha_squared 6y ago
    > Sometimes it's not 100% clear if you're just coming in that a function returns a boolean I'd argue the function isn't named appropriately, then. > Sometimes you just want to remind yourself and it sneaks past a code review Remind yourself what, exactly? > dozen plus languages, and some just handle truthiness differently and it's easier to just make sure (looking at you, Javascript) I'd argue that it's on the developer to know and work with the language's semantics (and I say this as someone who's not a fan of JS). Trying to write code that is nearly language agnostic in semantics will leave out a whole lot of language-specific value.

zenlot 6y ago

Agreed 100%.

UncleOxidant 6y ago

I'm just tired of the whole tech interview process. I've prepped for days for interviews only to have them fall apart because they asked something I hadn't prepped for or some kind of gotchya riddle was asked. What I've found works best is to just convince myself I really don't care either way if I get the job or not - that's when I do my best. When I really want the job, that's when I do my worst. While I'm currently not working (for money, anyway) I'm fortunate to be in a position to not have to look for work. That could change, of course (for example, if the SCOTUS strikes down the ACA I'll need to find a job with insurance). Just thinking about interviewing in this current environment makes my stomach tie up in knots. But for now, I'll be over here working on my own interesting problems.

coin 6y ago
A lot of the interview process is luck - the questions they ask, the person interviewing, and their mood/interest.