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> frankly totally unqualified people seeking SWE positions PLEASE explain to me what value leetcode-type questions provide over what good of a software enginee

> frankly totally unqualified people seeking SWE positions PLEASE explain to me what value leetcode-type questions provide over what good of a software engineer someone is!

Nextgrid 4y ago
They don't measure "goodness", they merely check that the person actually knows how to write code. I disagree with them (I believe they are unnecessarily complex when it comes to the actual algorithms, and rarely mimic the real-world requirements of the job), but at least they do weed out idiots who can't even write a for loop.
vbezhenar 4y ago
There're shocking number of people who can't write simplest code. Here's simple task that I ask on interviews: write JavaScript function which works like setTimeout and uses setTimeout internally but provides a Promise result so it can be awaited. Very few people can write that kind of code. They actually have no idea what Promise is. They want to get in frontend position. How can you write frontend code if you have no idea what Promise is.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  I would say that's not a great example. I wrote literally that function as a utility in my project, and it was honestly kind of tricky. There's a big gap between knowing how to use a Promise, which is necessary and closer to an "idea what a Promise is", vs how to build one from scratch, which is nice but probably not necessary for a generic frontend job. It wasn't even really necessary for me, I just wanted to be able to pause functions with an await statement.
sokoloff 4y ago
Imagine you had an automated oracle who could tell you how many out of three easy-level leetcode problems a candidate could solve in 90 minutes total. Would that piece of information be helpful to you as you consider which candidates to invite to the first round of interviews? That is why companies do it. A candidate who got 2 or 3 solved in 90 minutes is very likely to do much better on the rest of the interview and on the job than someone who couldn't solve any. (I think a lot of people who can write code have a difficult time imagining just how many people both can't write code and apply for seemingly every posted SWE job listing.)
- vagrantJin 4y ago
  > Imagine you had an automated oracle Haha. Hiring people is a job in and of itself. It needs a good eye for detail and intuition. People are weird. Some days they write great code and hardly any serious bugs. Other days they need to look up a for-loop on MDN.

> frankly totally unqualified people seeking SWE positions PLEASE explain to me what value leetcode-type questions provide over what good of a software engineer someone is!

Nextgrid 4y ago

They don't measure "goodness", they merely check that the person actually knows how to write code. I disagree with them (I believe they are unnecessarily complex when it comes to the actual algorithms, and rarely mimic the real-world requirements of the job), but at least they do weed out idiots who can't even write a for loop.

vbezhenar 4y ago

There're shocking number of people who can't write simplest code. Here's simple task that I ask on interviews: write JavaScript function which works like setTimeout and uses setTimeout internally but provides a Promise result so it can be awaited. Very few people can write that kind of code. They actually have no idea what Promise is. They want to get in frontend position. How can you write frontend code if you have no idea what Promise is.

andrewflnr 4y ago
I would say that's not a great example. I wrote literally that function as a utility in my project, and it was honestly kind of tricky. There's a big gap between knowing how to use a Promise, which is necessary and closer to an "idea what a Promise is", vs how to build one from scratch, which is nice but probably not necessary for a generic frontend job. It wasn't even really necessary for me, I just wanted to be able to pause functions with an await statement.

sokoloff 4y ago

Imagine you had an automated oracle who could tell you how many out of three easy-level leetcode problems a candidate could solve in 90 minutes total. Would that piece of information be helpful to you as you consider which candidates to invite to the first round of interviews? That is why companies do it. A candidate who got 2 or 3 solved in 90 minutes is very likely to do much better on the rest of the interview and on the job than someone who couldn't solve any. (I think a lot of people who can write code have a difficult time imagining just how many people both can't write code and apply for seemingly every posted SWE job listing.)

vagrantJin 4y ago
> Imagine you had an automated oracle Haha. Hiring people is a job in and of itself. It needs a good eye for detail and intuition. People are weird. Some days they write great code and hardly any serious bugs. Other days they need to look up a for-loop on MDN.