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> I take it you haven't interviewed for a SE in a while? The status quo requires you to perform months of unpaid labor, not days, just in the form of memorizing

> I take it you haven't interviewed for a SE in a while? The status quo requires you to perform months of unpaid labor, not days, just in the form of memorizing the solutions to every single Leetcode Hard problem. How is that better? I guess because it kinds "scales". Once you are familiar with Leetcode you can use this skill to take interviews with different companies. Take-home exercises dont' "scale". That being said, I believe people are against take-home exercises exactly for the reason you support it: it's usable code. They worry the companies will exploit candidates by using their code for free. Leetcode is "useless" so it's safe.

zimzam 4y ago
I've never had a take home assignment that was "usable code" - they've all been toy problems.
disruptiveink 4y ago
For clarity, these take-home exercises that I'm referring to are completely toy problems. They're usually one or two REST APIs on top of a toy data structure (sometimes in-memory, without a DB at all), just to see how the candidate models, writes and tests code. An API that does some pricing math based on some in-memory state or the likes of it. If we're talking about "make me a website" kind of exercises that one could throw into production after some tweaks, then that is free labor and I would absolutely refuse those. Also, the fact that "leetcode scales" is part of the problem I was talking about. I really dislike the fact that if you train for months to develop a complete set of skills parallel and irrelevant to your actual role you can now efficiently interview for a number of companies that pay top dollar. So not only people with actual skills and experience are on equal (or worse!) footing than someone straight out of college, it also incentivises those who mastered leetcode to interview everywhere, since "it's all the same", while normal people who are good at their job get their torn to shreds after one or two interviews. So not only it's judging the wrong thing at the interview, but it's also causing a starvation situation for the candidates that are not playing that game. Why are we creating incentives to people becoming "professional interviewers"? This would be like Google encouraging SEO spam instead of fighting against it!
- raincole 4y ago
  I agree with all what you said. I'm just speculating on why some people prefer leetcode over take-home exercises.

zimzam 4y ago

I've never had a take home assignment that was "usable code" - they've all been toy problems.

disruptiveink 4y ago

For clarity, these take-home exercises that I'm referring to are completely toy problems. They're usually one or two REST APIs on top of a toy data structure (sometimes in-memory, without a DB at all), just to see how the candidate models, writes and tests code. An API that does some pricing math based on some in-memory state or the likes of it. If we're talking about "make me a website" kind of exercises that one could throw into production after some tweaks, then that is free labor and I would absolutely refuse those. Also, the fact that "leetcode scales" is part of the problem I was talking about. I really dislike the fact that if you train for months to develop a complete set of skills parallel and irrelevant to your actual role you can now efficiently interview for a number of companies that pay top dollar. So not only people with actual skills and experience are on equal (or worse!) footing than someone straight out of college, it also incentivises those who mastered leetcode to interview everywhere, since "it's all the same", while normal people who are good at their job get their torn to shreds after one or two interviews. So not only it's judging the wrong thing at the interview, but it's also causing a starvation situation for the candidates that are not playing that game. Why are we creating incentives to people becoming "professional interviewers"? This would be like Google encouraging SEO spam instead of fighting against it!

raincole 4y ago
I agree with all what you said. I'm just speculating on why some people prefer leetcode over take-home exercises.