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It's much better than the alternative and ideally only one part of the interview process. Ultimately the proof is in the pudding, I've had loads of candidates

It's much better than the alternative and ideally only one part of the interview process. Ultimately the proof is in the pudding, I've had loads of candidates that could barely code and Leetcode-style problems are a great filter against that. Otherwise you risk just getting PM-style bullshitters as engineers, who talk persuasively about projects that other people actually implemented.

seer 4y ago
People who can do leetcode challenges are only roughly correlated with great engineers. The more I learn about software development the more I try to _not_ have leet code style parts in my code - in the very rare circumstances would I see something like that and say - yes there is _no_ other library out there that has a battle tested algo to solve this particular problem, _and I have to code my own_. Worse people who excel at Leet Code could start to bring that sort of thing into your codebases, optimising small parts of your code to perfection, and then leaving the whole thing a mess or just plain reject to work on solving business issues and concentrate on polishing their small bit of algorithm. Of corse there are positions where that sort of mindset is welcome and sought after. Especially in very big companies, but for the most developers out there leet code is _just_ for the interview part and they would (should) never use that kind of problem solving in their day-to-day work. When I have to interview somebody, and there's leet code involved: a) they are _really_ comfortable with those types of challenges - that tells me they have spent a lot of time preparing - either for this interview or just generally, either way that wouldn't _really_ tell me much about their problem solving skills b) they feel uncomfortable and fail to solve anything due to stress or anxiety - again no really knowledge gained, as real-world work environments tend to try to minimise those, at least in the places where I work in. c) they feel uncomfortable but get the hang of it - now I _might_ have a glimpse of their problem solving skills, but I've put a human being in a very uncomfortable position just to _test_ them. There _has_ to be a better way. The way I like to conduct interviews where possible is to ask people to walk you through some of the code they've written and ask various questions about decisions - much more relaxed and I still get the sense of how they organise their stuff and how they work. If that's not possible - a take home task or something. Or even "hire fast fire fast" approach works too.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  I think it's fair to do two Leetcode Easys - ideally with problems that allow you to ask further questions about memory management (when are allocations triggered, etc.), recursion, stack frames, adjacent memory location for efficient reads and so on. The problem is that a take-home task can be impossible for some people already in a full-time job with kids, etc. and so has its own bias. And the "hire fast fire fast" approach doesn't really exist here in Scandinavia, even though there is a probation period it's still frowned upon to use it for anything but extreme circumstances, and if done en masse would likely raise issues with the trade unions.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    >memory management (when are allocations triggered, etc.), recursion, stack frames, adjacent memory location for efficient reads and so on. This sounds incredibly specific. Most places requiring at most LC easy don't really need any of this, and I'd be worried about the interviewer looking for key words and specific answers over actually testing whether the candidate grasps things or can learn what is necessary.
  - sithlord 4y ago
    Then part of the process should be to allocate part of the interview schedule to the take home. Say, 1 hour interview block, at minute 1 candidate is sent an exercise and at minute 45 a zoom call starts to discuss things. That way, some of the pressure is off of coding with someone looking over your shoulder, and you still have time allocated off already.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > c) but I've put a human being in a very uncomfortable position just to _test_ them. There _has_ to be a better way. > ... > Or even "hire fast fire fast" approach works too. Comment "c" shows a high level of care/concern for the candidate. "hire fast fire fast" does not. What if the candidate left an unsatisfying but steady job to join your company? And they get fired in the first few weeks. Now they are unemployed. This is much more uncomfortable than an awkward interview question.
haspok 4y ago
Leetcode should only be used for easy problems - FizzBuzz types - where you are checking that the candidate can code at all, probably as the very first round of an interview. This way, I think it is totally fair, including a relatively tight time limit. The harder the problem is, the more you focus on the special skill of leetcoding, and not much else.
water8 4y ago
It’s absolutely hilarious you think leetcode would give you the skills to design anything larger than a simple website. I don’t recall leet code ever talking about how to set up an infrastructure that has reliability on an enterprise-level where seconds of downtime means millions of dollars lost. But you’ll be really good at hash maps and quicksort which make for good worker drones, not necessarily good engineers. that requires outside the box thinking, The opposite of the type of memorization leetcode encourages
- j245 4y ago
  “Absolutely hilarious” that you’re forgetting there is usually a system design round that tests things like “setting up infrastructure on an enterprise-level”. The coding round is supposed to test that.. you can code. For the record I’m also not a fan of the Leet Code style rounds, even though I actually find completing them (outside of an interview) quite fun.
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    That’s the usual tactic of LeetCode haters: find a straw man and ignore the big picture.
- GuB-42 4y ago
  > It’s absolutely hilarious you think leetcode would give you the skills to design anything larger than a simple website. The point of leetcode is not to show what you can do, it is to show what you can't do. To keep up with your analogy, being able to design a simple website doesn't make you able to set-up an enterprise-level infrastructure, but if someone isn't able to design a simple website, I don't want to hire him for my enterprise-level infrastructure. As for "outside the box" thinking, it only works if you know where the box is, otherwise you are just being clueless. And by the way, because it is an argument I see way too often, calling the "sort" function of your favorite library instead of doing the exercise "as intended" is not "outside the box" thinking, it is literally the most obvious thing to do. What could count as "outside the box" would realizing that you can solve the problem more efficiently by not sorting anything at all, which requires you to know your sorting algorithms to show that it is indeed more efficient.
davedx 4y ago
Did you read the article before commenting? They aren't suggesting to not do programming tests, they're saying make the tests more aligned to the role and domain being hired for. I use a pretty similar approach and find it works very well.
TrackerFF 4y ago
There's quite the distance between FizzBuzz and LeetCode medium/hard questions. If you want to filter out candidates that barely can't code, just have them walk you through a small code-base containing bugs. What does the code do? Does it work? How would you get it working? How do you test it? What is the complexity? etc.
pcan77 4y ago
I really disagree here; I've been a successful engineer at a Fortune 500 company for a decade. I'm a front end engineer. I still have absolutely no idea why companies choose to test FE engineers with leetcode style questions (which I am terrible at). My job has almost NOTHING to do with leetcode, and yet it's a huge hurdle to go over for some unknown reason. I'm a great engineer, I just suck at leetcode questions because...shocker! They have absolutely nothing to do with my day-to-day. It's similar to puzzles; I hate puzzles and doing puzzles/escape rooms/etc, but I'm a pretty smart guy. Leetcode is merely a gatekeeping methodology that proves almost nothing and weeds out a lot of amazing engineers who aren't skilled at grinding leetcode or hate brain teaser shit.
iostream25 4y ago
I don't agree. Forget Leetcode, ask them to code real world examples of common stuff you will want them to deal with.

seer 4y ago

People who can do leetcode challenges are only roughly correlated with great engineers. The more I learn about software development the more I try to _not_ have leet code style parts in my code - in the very rare circumstances would I see something like that and say - yes there is _no_ other library out there that has a battle tested algo to solve this particular problem, _and I have to code my own_. Worse people who excel at Leet Code could start to bring that sort of thing into your codebases, optimising small parts of your code to perfection, and then leaving the whole thing a mess or just plain reject to work on solving business issues and concentrate on polishing their small bit of algorithm. Of corse there are positions where that sort of mindset is welcome and sought after. Especially in very big companies, but for the most developers out there leet code is _just_ for the interview part and they would (should) never use that kind of problem solving in their day-to-day work. When I have to interview somebody, and there's leet code involved: a) they are _really_ comfortable with those types of challenges - that tells me they have spent a lot of time preparing - either for this interview or just generally, either way that wouldn't _really_ tell me much about their problem solving skills b) they feel uncomfortable and fail to solve anything due to stress or anxiety - again no really knowledge gained, as real-world work environments tend to try to minimise those, at least in the places where I work in. c) they feel uncomfortable but get the hang of it - now I _might_ have a glimpse of their problem solving skills, but I've put a human being in a very uncomfortable position just to _test_ them. There _has_ to be a better way. The way I like to conduct interviews where possible is to ask people to walk you through some of the code they've written and ask various questions about decisions - much more relaxed and I still get the sense of how they organise their stuff and how they work. If that's not possible - a take home task or something. Or even "hire fast fire fast" approach works too.

nivenkos 4y ago
I think it's fair to do two Leetcode Easys - ideally with problems that allow you to ask further questions about memory management (when are allocations triggered, etc.), recursion, stack frames, adjacent memory location for efficient reads and so on. The problem is that a take-home task can be impossible for some people already in a full-time job with kids, etc. and so has its own bias. And the "hire fast fire fast" approach doesn't really exist here in Scandinavia, even though there is a probation period it's still frowned upon to use it for anything but extreme circumstances, and if done en masse would likely raise issues with the trade unions.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  >memory management (when are allocations triggered, etc.), recursion, stack frames, adjacent memory location for efficient reads and so on. This sounds incredibly specific. Most places requiring at most LC easy don't really need any of this, and I'd be worried about the interviewer looking for key words and specific answers over actually testing whether the candidate grasps things or can learn what is necessary.
- sithlord 4y ago
  Then part of the process should be to allocate part of the interview schedule to the take home. Say, 1 hour interview block, at minute 1 candidate is sent an exercise and at minute 45 a zoom call starts to discuss things. That way, some of the pressure is off of coding with someone looking over your shoulder, and you still have time allocated off already.
mellavora 4y ago
> c) but I've put a human being in a very uncomfortable position just to _test_ them. There _has_ to be a better way. > ... > Or even "hire fast fire fast" approach works too. Comment "c" shows a high level of care/concern for the candidate. "hire fast fire fast" does not. What if the candidate left an unsatisfying but steady job to join your company? And they get fired in the first few weeks. Now they are unemployed. This is much more uncomfortable than an awkward interview question.

haspok 4y ago

Leetcode should only be used for easy problems - FizzBuzz types - where you are checking that the candidate can code at all, probably as the very first round of an interview. This way, I think it is totally fair, including a relatively tight time limit. The harder the problem is, the more you focus on the special skill of leetcoding, and not much else.

water8 4y ago

It’s absolutely hilarious you think leetcode would give you the skills to design anything larger than a simple website. I don’t recall leet code ever talking about how to set up an infrastructure that has reliability on an enterprise-level where seconds of downtime means millions of dollars lost. But you’ll be really good at hash maps and quicksort which make for good worker drones, not necessarily good engineers. that requires outside the box thinking, The opposite of the type of memorization leetcode encourages

j245 4y ago
“Absolutely hilarious” that you’re forgetting there is usually a system design round that tests things like “setting up infrastructure on an enterprise-level”. The coding round is supposed to test that.. you can code. For the record I’m also not a fan of the Leet Code style rounds, even though I actually find completing them (outside of an interview) quite fun.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  That’s the usual tactic of LeetCode haters: find a straw man and ignore the big picture.
GuB-42 4y ago
> It’s absolutely hilarious you think leetcode would give you the skills to design anything larger than a simple website. The point of leetcode is not to show what you can do, it is to show what you can't do. To keep up with your analogy, being able to design a simple website doesn't make you able to set-up an enterprise-level infrastructure, but if someone isn't able to design a simple website, I don't want to hire him for my enterprise-level infrastructure. As for "outside the box" thinking, it only works if you know where the box is, otherwise you are just being clueless. And by the way, because it is an argument I see way too often, calling the "sort" function of your favorite library instead of doing the exercise "as intended" is not "outside the box" thinking, it is literally the most obvious thing to do. What could count as "outside the box" would realizing that you can solve the problem more efficiently by not sorting anything at all, which requires you to know your sorting algorithms to show that it is indeed more efficient.

davedx 4y ago

Did you read the article before commenting? They aren't suggesting to not do programming tests, they're saying make the tests more aligned to the role and domain being hired for. I use a pretty similar approach and find it works very well.

TrackerFF 4y ago

There's quite the distance between FizzBuzz and LeetCode medium/hard questions. If you want to filter out candidates that barely can't code, just have them walk you through a small code-base containing bugs. What does the code do? Does it work? How would you get it working? How do you test it? What is the complexity? etc.

pcan77 4y ago

I really disagree here; I've been a successful engineer at a Fortune 500 company for a decade. I'm a front end engineer. I still have absolutely no idea why companies choose to test FE engineers with leetcode style questions (which I am terrible at). My job has almost NOTHING to do with leetcode, and yet it's a huge hurdle to go over for some unknown reason. I'm a great engineer, I just suck at leetcode questions because...shocker! They have absolutely nothing to do with my day-to-day. It's similar to puzzles; I hate puzzles and doing puzzles/escape rooms/etc, but I'm a pretty smart guy. Leetcode is merely a gatekeeping methodology that proves almost nothing and weeds out a lot of amazing engineers who aren't skilled at grinding leetcode or hate brain teaser shit.

iostream25 4y ago

I don't agree. Forget Leetcode, ask them to code real world examples of common stuff you will want them to deal with.