> most extreme leetcode interviews > They can’t innovate because innovative type people weren’t let into the company. My personal experience is that there lee

> most extreme leetcode interviews > They can’t innovate because innovative type people weren’t let into the company. My personal experience is that there leetcode prep decreases as you go 1 std. deviation beyond the 'median FANG employee' level of talent. [footnote 1] This doesn't matter for the absolute best [footnote 3], who comfortably hop over any generic interview filter and tend to be heavily scouted even before they step into an interview. The rub comes with the almost-best (think 1-4 percentile) candidates that that I know. (Many) Almost best candidates are busy working on their primary projects and end up insufficiently prepared for leetcode style interviews. A bunch of these brilliant engineers are falling through the cracks. (into slightly less prestigious jobs, but still) This gets amplified once they join a job. They rise up the ranks fast, owing to their talent. But they're doing too much to find time for interview prep. 'Senior' interviews can be a difficult nut to crack, because they still use extreme leetcode style interviews when the interviewee has not used any of it in the last few years on the job. I find that such people only switch jobs when they are forced to; either by bad management or life circumstances. Such people excel at projects, take-home assignments, system design interviews, SME domain interviews and any skill that is relevant to everyday job work. But, these are usually the final or pen-ultimate round. By that point, the decision is already made. Additionally, as long as leetcode interviews are the norm, there is no option between preparing for practical interviews vs leetcode interviews. So without consensus movement, the 'fix' would exacerbate the problem of time constrainted near-best performers vs stagnating [footnote 2] median performers. [footnote 1] : I am beginning to see the utility in 'not so impressive 95th percentile' as a useful yardstick in discussions. Bugger, you got me. [footnote 2] : That's not to say that those who excel at leetcode are stagnating median performers. Not a symmetric analogy. [footnote 3] : think smartest kid in a top CS program, multiple standard deviations beyond