6 ms·

> I get paid absurd sums because of supply and demand, not because of my skills; There's limited offer because it's a rare skill, not sure what you mean by "no

by yarky 5y ago

> I get paid absurd sums because of supply and demand, not because of my skills; There's limited offer because it's a rare skill, not sure what you mean by "not because of my skills" since your skills are rare hence valuable to the market. > Thankfully for my mortgage, that hasn't happened yet and probably won't happen soon. The keyword is "hopefully". This already happened to physicists with nuclear power if I recall my history lectures.

helen___keller 5y ago
> There's limited offer because it's a rare skill, not sure what you mean by "not because of my skills" since your skills are rare hence valuable to the market. Leetcode doesn't make companies money. They can't tie it to their revenue. Being paid because of my skills means I can walk into an interview, say "I'm a domain expert in X and my last client saved $Y thanks to my expertise when I optimized their Z". The leetcode analogue is "I'm a fungible engineer, and since your company basically prints money as long as you have enough fungible engineers to keep the ship running, you should hire me"
- Jensson 5y ago
  > I can walk into an interview, say "I'm a domain expert in X and my last client saved $Y thanks to my expertise when I optimized their Z". Billions of people have the skills to say that. Being able to say something doesn't mean that you have the skills to do it. And being able to talk about something for a few minutes after that first sentence also doesn't necessarily mean that you have the skills to do it. If you had an airtight system for assigning credit for performance at companies, and then being able to show evidence of what you did to other companies, then what you are talking about would work. But right now nobody even knows how to properly assess the value of employees they work directly with, being able to assess the value of employees you just heard a few sentences from would be magic.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > "I'm a domain expert in X and my last client saved $Y thanks to my expertise when I optimized their Z". And I verify that... how? LC is basically a proxy for being able to pick up random shit quickly, learn how it works, and demonstrate/use that knowledge. The particular knowledge isn't that important. It probably won't be that important at the big tech co - what's more important is how fast you can pick up their novel processes and stack and start getting effective work done.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    >> LC is basically a proxy for being able to pick up random shit quickly This is the exact opposite of LeetCode. It proves they've crammed on the front-end of the long tail wave of problems. It shows absolutely nothing about recognizing general problem domains and being able to identify long term solutions. You're right it has no long term importance. It's just a different, still artificial signaling value.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      I do think the fact that people cram is a problem with LC. Cramming is still a pretty big barrier. Personally, and for many people I know, cramming was not necessary because we had a conceptual understanding - maybe a week or two of doing 2-3 a day and you would be set. Anything you do in an interview is going to be an artificial signaling value. I think LC is a much better signal than the talk-out-your-ass approach you seem to favor, and I've done both sorts of interviews. The difference is also pretty obvious in the quality of your peers based on what sort of interviews your firm does.
      - throwawaythekey 5y ago
        > Personally, and for many people I know, cramming was not necessary because we had a conceptual understanding - maybe a week or two of doing 2-3 a day and you would be set. Apologies for being pedantic about word use but that time commitment is longer than what's normally meant by cram. Traditionally a cram would be up to a day or two of hard work before exams. What you outlined would just be study (an even larger barrier). > Anything you do in an interview is going to be an artificial signaling value. I think LC is a much better signal than the talk-out-your-ass approach you seem to favor, and I've done both sorts of interviews. I prefer the talk out your ass approach personally, but maybe with a detour to asking the candidate to describe something technically challenging they worked on. If the interviewer is fast their your feet and the candidate is skilled at explaining then you can go reasonably deep. After this the interviewer can usually weigh the talk-out-your-ass claims accordingly. > The difference is also pretty obvious in the quality of your peers based on what sort of interviews your firm does. Our firm (fast growing series a startup) struggles with this, so take all of the above with a grain of salt. Our problems seem to be more related to not being able to generate a large enough talent pool, not with inaccuracies cherry picking candidates. We hire about ~25% of genuine applicants and find our main problems post hiring are if they are willing to take initiative and be self directed.

by yarky 5y ago

helen___keller 5y ago

> There's limited offer because it's a rare skill, not sure what you mean by "not because of my skills" since your skills are rare hence valuable to the market. Leetcode doesn't make companies money. They can't tie it to their revenue. Being paid because of my skills means I can walk into an interview, say "I'm a domain expert in X and my last client saved $Y thanks to my expertise when I optimized their Z". The leetcode analogue is "I'm a fungible engineer, and since your company basically prints money as long as you have enough fungible engineers to keep the ship running, you should hire me"

Jensson 5y ago
> I can walk into an interview, say "I'm a domain expert in X and my last client saved $Y thanks to my expertise when I optimized their Z". Billions of people have the skills to say that. Being able to say something doesn't mean that you have the skills to do it. And being able to talk about something for a few minutes after that first sentence also doesn't necessarily mean that you have the skills to do it. If you had an airtight system for assigning credit for performance at companies, and then being able to show evidence of what you did to other companies, then what you are talking about would work. But right now nobody even knows how to properly assess the value of employees they work directly with, being able to assess the value of employees you just heard a few sentences from would be magic.
whimsicalism 5y ago
> "I'm a domain expert in X and my last client saved $Y thanks to my expertise when I optimized their Z". And I verify that... how? LC is basically a proxy for being able to pick up random shit quickly, learn how it works, and demonstrate/use that knowledge. The particular knowledge isn't that important. It probably won't be that important at the big tech co - what's more important is how fast you can pick up their novel processes and stack and start getting effective work done.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  >> LC is basically a proxy for being able to pick up random shit quickly This is the exact opposite of LeetCode. It proves they've crammed on the front-end of the long tail wave of problems. It shows absolutely nothing about recognizing general problem domains and being able to identify long term solutions. You're right it has no long term importance. It's just a different, still artificial signaling value.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I do think the fact that people cram is a problem with LC. Cramming is still a pretty big barrier. Personally, and for many people I know, cramming was not necessary because we had a conceptual understanding - maybe a week or two of doing 2-3 a day and you would be set. Anything you do in an interview is going to be an artificial signaling value. I think LC is a much better signal than the talk-out-your-ass approach you seem to favor, and I've done both sorts of interviews. The difference is also pretty obvious in the quality of your peers based on what sort of interviews your firm does.
    - throwawaythekey 5y ago
      > Personally, and for many people I know, cramming was not necessary because we had a conceptual understanding - maybe a week or two of doing 2-3 a day and you would be set. Apologies for being pedantic about word use but that time commitment is longer than what's normally meant by cram. Traditionally a cram would be up to a day or two of hard work before exams. What you outlined would just be study (an even larger barrier). > Anything you do in an interview is going to be an artificial signaling value. I think LC is a much better signal than the talk-out-your-ass approach you seem to favor, and I've done both sorts of interviews. I prefer the talk out your ass approach personally, but maybe with a detour to asking the candidate to describe something technically challenging they worked on. If the interviewer is fast their your feet and the candidate is skilled at explaining then you can go reasonably deep. After this the interviewer can usually weigh the talk-out-your-ass claims accordingly. > The difference is also pretty obvious in the quality of your peers based on what sort of interviews your firm does. Our firm (fast growing series a startup) struggles with this, so take all of the above with a grain of salt. Our problems seem to be more related to not being able to generate a large enough talent pool, not with inaccuracies cherry picking candidates. We hire about ~25% of genuine applicants and find our main problems post hiring are if they are willing to take initiative and be self directed.