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This might be an unpopular opinion around here but I believe Leetcode is a terrible metric for assessing developer performance. Think of it like this. Say you'

This might be an unpopular opinion around here but I believe Leetcode is a terrible metric for assessing developer performance. Think of it like this. Say you're a construction worker but you suck at LeetCement, a bunch of cement mixing exercises. You think you're an absolute failure because you can't do the most basic thing in construction: mixing cement. Guess what? No one really cares that you can't mix cement. Customers aren't going to walk through your building commenting on "well this cement wasn't mixed right". Sure if you really screw it up the building will be in danger but in the grand scheme of the entire construction site, cement mixing, like leetcode, is a super small portion of the big picture and something you can hand off to a company that specializes in mixing cement. As a programmer, your performance is based upon what you can build. You're never going to have a manager or customer go "well this looks good, but I noticed that your link list function is 3 lines vs 1 line". Leetcode at the end of the day is semantics of programming, no one besides the most hardcore programmers give a damn about it. Sure you can reverse a linked list in a one line of code, but can you build a piece of working functioning software? I can't tell you how many of these "Rockstar Developers" I've interviewed that while they can solve every leetcode problem in their sleep, can't figure out how to construct functional software to deliver to a customer. I've been programming professionally for 5 years now and I never got past leetcode easies.

QuitProgramming 6y ago
Your reasoning for why Leetcode is bad is a bit flawed. The reason why it works is because it's correlated with other performance. The fact that a customer don't ask for it before they give you a job doesn't disprove the correlative factor. The fact that people snub it by thinking it's too far removed from reality doesn't make it so either. The fact is that someone who is clever enough to consistently do things like reverse a linked list in one line quickly and correctly will also be able to quickly do less clever things correctly. Your idea is that only doing the exact thing shows if you are good at it. You are almost implying there are no correlations between skills. If that's what you believe then looking at the research on IQ should clear up that empirically that is not the case. And note I said the research. Not news articles or editorials or blogs or podcasts. The actual scientific literature.
- sandrom927 6y ago
  While we are at flaws: Clever programmers are the worst as clever code is the worst idea for any kind of maintenance. Maybe we should use Leetcode to weed out the clever ones. Thank you for that idea!
deleted 6y ago
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QuitProgramming 6y ago

Your reasoning for why Leetcode is bad is a bit flawed. The reason why it works is because it's correlated with other performance. The fact that a customer don't ask for it before they give you a job doesn't disprove the correlative factor. The fact that people snub it by thinking it's too far removed from reality doesn't make it so either. The fact is that someone who is clever enough to consistently do things like reverse a linked list in one line quickly and correctly will also be able to quickly do less clever things correctly. Your idea is that only doing the exact thing shows if you are good at it. You are almost implying there are no correlations between skills. If that's what you believe then looking at the research on IQ should clear up that empirically that is not the case. And note I said the research. Not news articles or editorials or blogs or podcasts. The actual scientific literature.

sandrom927 6y ago
While we are at flaws: Clever programmers are the worst as clever code is the worst idea for any kind of maintenance. Maybe we should use Leetcode to weed out the clever ones. Thank you for that idea!

deleted 6y ago

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