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I personally like these questions a lot and I've used them in the past when I was tasked with hiring people because it basically boils down to a few things. One

I personally like these questions a lot and I've used them in the past when I was tasked with hiring people because it basically boils down to a few things. One is that people who have a good grasp on algorithms, math or academic problems generally are pretty smart, and you can teach them practical coding skills very quickly while the reverse isn't true. so it's sort of like a IQ test. Secondly it rewards people who at least put the effort in to prepare for an interview. These questions are a very reliable way to eliminate candidates. And to take the journalism example, I actually think that'd make a pretty solid test because if a journalist doesn't have a basic grasp on formal language I would have to reconsider how strongly they're committed to their craft. It's honestly only the case in software, an engineering discipline to boot, that people question the necessity of being able to solve basic theoretical problems. Would anyone trust a civil engineer who can't answer first semester math questions?

selcuka 5y ago
I guess it all boils down to who you are hiring (the OP is talking about hiring senior developers). It is ok to ask more technical questions to fresh graduates as they don't have any other experience anyway. > it rewards people who at least put the effort in to prepare for an interview Is this a good thing? Would you rather hire smart people, or people who studied a few leetcode questions the night before the interview? > Would anyone trust a civil engineer who can't answer first semester math questions? Civil engineers use that knowledge in everything they do. A really small subset of developers need to implement tree traversal algorithms from scratch on a daily basis.
asdff 5y ago
Take a step back and see how this leads you to miss out on plenty of candidates who could do the job, at the end of the day. These sorts of tests really just optimize for hiring people with time on their hands to study this stuff. Right off the bat having a heavy leetcode requirement probably excludes people with families or dependents, people with hobbies, or people who want to do anything after the bell that isn't staring at more code on an electronic screen. I also think its a little backward to expect the candidate to be doing very much prep work in advance of the interview. They are in all likelyhood currently employed fulltime and busy with their life outside of that. Instead I would focus on simply seeing if the candidate would be interested in the sort of work they would be doing, and giving as much detail as possible on what the job would be like for them. Job listings and corporate websites are often very opaque. It's one thing to get someone competent, but if they hate the job they will be gone in a year and you will be in the exact same place as you are today. If you get someone who might not know all the required tooling, but is very interested in the work being done, they will step up and be one of your most prolific employees before long and contribute to lasting institutional knowledge within your organization, rather than running off with their skills as soon as someone dangles a better paycheck in front of them.
Der_Einzige 5y ago
BTW, IQ tests are, even if occasionally legal (seems they aren't necessarily illegal, but sometimes illegal in the USA depending on circumstances), are pretty unethical given that IQ is poorly correlated with what you're trying to measure (G), but it you don't trust me, trust Nasim Taleb: https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39 https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-... You should not be trying to approximate an IQ test (and leetcode does exactly this).
usrbinbash 5y ago
> One is that people who have a good grasp on algorithms, math or academic problems And can you guarantee that this is what LC questions test for? We are talking about questions here were the answers are known, their usage for interviews is known, and curated lists of questions commonly used for interviews exist . So yeah, they may test for a good grasp of algorithms, data structures and math. But they can also just be memorized and replayed at will given enough time.

selcuka 5y ago

I guess it all boils down to who you are hiring (the OP is talking about hiring senior developers). It is ok to ask more technical questions to fresh graduates as they don't have any other experience anyway. > it rewards people who at least put the effort in to prepare for an interview Is this a good thing? Would you rather hire smart people, or people who studied a few leetcode questions the night before the interview? > Would anyone trust a civil engineer who can't answer first semester math questions? Civil engineers use that knowledge in everything they do. A really small subset of developers need to implement tree traversal algorithms from scratch on a daily basis.

asdff 5y ago

Take a step back and see how this leads you to miss out on plenty of candidates who could do the job, at the end of the day. These sorts of tests really just optimize for hiring people with time on their hands to study this stuff. Right off the bat having a heavy leetcode requirement probably excludes people with families or dependents, people with hobbies, or people who want to do anything after the bell that isn't staring at more code on an electronic screen. I also think its a little backward to expect the candidate to be doing very much prep work in advance of the interview. They are in all likelyhood currently employed fulltime and busy with their life outside of that. Instead I would focus on simply seeing if the candidate would be interested in the sort of work they would be doing, and giving as much detail as possible on what the job would be like for them. Job listings and corporate websites are often very opaque. It's one thing to get someone competent, but if they hate the job they will be gone in a year and you will be in the exact same place as you are today. If you get someone who might not know all the required tooling, but is very interested in the work being done, they will step up and be one of your most prolific employees before long and contribute to lasting institutional knowledge within your organization, rather than running off with their skills as soon as someone dangles a better paycheck in front of them.

Der_Einzige 5y ago

BTW, IQ tests are, even if occasionally legal (seems they aren't necessarily illegal, but sometimes illegal in the USA depending on circumstances), are pretty unethical given that IQ is poorly correlated with what you're trying to measure (G), but it you don't trust me, trust Nasim Taleb: https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39 https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-... You should not be trying to approximate an IQ test (and leetcode does exactly this).

usrbinbash 5y ago

> One is that people who have a good grasp on algorithms, math or academic problems And can you guarantee that this is what LC questions test for? We are talking about questions here were the answers are known, their usage for interviews is known, and curated lists of questions commonly used for interviews exist . So yeah, they may test for a good grasp of algorithms, data structures and math. But they can also just be memorized and replayed at will given enough time.