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> I've been on teams with a developer who couldn't crunch strings. Leetcode interviews get the job done of avoiding those people My main objection is that it's
by trhr 4y ago
> I've been on teams with a developer who couldn't crunch strings. Leetcode interviews get the job done of avoiding those people
My main objection is that it's _timed_ crunching. The juniors can solve three toy problems in two hours because they've been drilling them nonstop for six months. I can finish any Medium and some Hard questions, but the Hards may take me 4 or 6 hours.
And yet, in the real world, I close tickets twice as fast as they do, because I grok the problem space quickly, don't head down as many dead ends, and know before I start when to escalate because this ticket isn't a ticket, it's an epic.
My point is solely that any test where a fresh graduate can reliably outperform someone with decades of experience is objectively not a very good test. I'd go so far as to say the universal reliance on LeetCode is a big part of why greybeards are underrepresented in dev teams.
- comfypotato 4y agoYou’re just a crotchety old grumpy greybeard is what you are. (Teasing) I think it’s plain as day to both of us that the new grads are outperforming experience because of practice. You could practice to get your solve times down below new grads. I posit that the dsa puzzle interviews have become prominent as a solution to a very specific problem: lots of very qualified applicants. When done correctly (with many rounds and equally qualified evaluators), the interviews produces few false positives (when it comes to being able to code effectively). Does it find people who are passionate about software? Does it find people who are good at refactoring complicated codebase? No and No, but the people it finds can stay afloat in a scrum. Finding the real gems is extremely difficult.