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> I've started grinding leetcode, reviewing system design, and behavioral questions. You MUST memorize perfect responses to regurgitate as fast as possible on t

> I've started grinding leetcode, reviewing system design, and behavioral questions. You MUST memorize perfect responses to regurgitate as fast as possible on the interview. Again, you cannot afford a single mistake in process right now or they will pass on you. I'm not discounting that it is hard to find tech jobs right now, but have you considered that this attitude of "grinding leetcode" is possibly contributing to companies not biting? I would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems.

WinLychee 3y ago
No, the first round is usually a timed coding interview where the goal is to get an optimal solution as fast as possible. You should not be talking much with the interviewer. The intro (if there is one) is a quick exchange of names and last job worked at, then immediately diving into coding problem. You cannot start with a naive solution, interviewer will ask you to skip and go straight to optimal (this happened to me more than once). If you solve that, they ask followup questions to probe your knowledge, and if you beat that, you get a second problem. After that might be more rounds of coding, system design, and hiring manager interview. The part where you can be charismatic is once you pass the initial technical bar(s). The talking/behavior is a later point in time and is relatively easy IMO. Examples of questions I've been asked: 1) https://leetcode.com/problems/non-overlapping-intervals/ https://leetcode.com/problems/non-overlapping-intervals/ 2) https://leetcode.com/problems/design-add-and-search-words-data-structure/ https://leetcode.com/problems/design-add-and-search-words-da... 3) https://leetcode.com/problems/detect-cycles-in-2d-grid/ https://leetcode.com/problems/detect-cycles-in-2d-grid/ 4) https://leetcode.com/problems/evaluate-reverse-polish-notation/ https://leetcode.com/problems/evaluate-reverse-polish-notati... 5) https://leetcode.com/problems/word-search/ https://leetcode.com/problems/word-search/ So nothing too hard but you have to instantly solve it, and optimally. The hardest one I got was some type of AI search problem, where you have to find a way to navigate obstacles in a 2d grid, and another geometry problem I've not seen before. Along with this questions like: what pitfalls arise in concurrency? Explain how you would design a pointer type that can be shared between threads, what is epoll? How do you debug a distributed system? etc.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  Jesus Christ: Where are you interviewing? This sounds more like Stephen King's The Long Walk, than a job interview! Do they hold a gun to your head while you regurtitate the optimal solution?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - fnimick 3y ago
    Have you interviewed recently? The vast majority of companies won't even have a conversation with you until after you've jumped through this.
    - jkachmar 3y ago
      fwiw in my experience it's entirely possible to avoid this if you don't submit an application "cold" (i.e. through the careers page), but through a recruiter or referral _IF_ you have a strong portfolio of open source work and/or exposure in technical spaces. i'm more than happy to do take-home assignments or complete reasonable timed assessments, but i have (politely) refused to complete leetcode-style gotcha screens when they have been presented to me as "just another part of the application process". idk, though. maybe that's a privileged statement based on my position, but from what i can tell grinding leetcode seems to be much less reliable these days & the toll it takes on a lot of folks is pretty significant.
    - komali2 3y ago
      I have but haven't had anyone ask me leetcode questions yet. Everyone's just been asking about my precious jobs. I also have an ok amount of public projects, maybe that's why? If someone asked my to do a leetcode style problem I'd politely refuse, and likely end the interview. I went through that kind of job hunt at the expense of my mental health and confidence in myself as an engineer once. It was one of the most degrading experiences of my life (so in all not a bad life to be fair). I'll never do it again.
rootusrootus 3y ago
> I would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems. My guess, as someone who has occasionally been the hiring manager, is that this is true, but so is the leetcode crap. It's leetcode that gets you far enough to meet someone who matters. It's charisma and reasoning ability that will get you an offer. I've met plenty of applicants who could give me superficially correct answers, but with any kind of detailed conversation it became clear that this was basically all they could do. When I hire someone for my team, I don't want leetcode answers, I want someone who can solve problems. I want someone that seems like they'll work well on the team. I want someone low maintenance and at least adequately productive. But this is just a medium sized software company and not a FAANG.
adriand 3y ago
> I would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems. As someone who has interviewed many software developers, I can assure you that charisma is not something that experienced hiring managers in tech are expecting in the candidate pool. For sales positions, sure. For coding, though, competence is often inversely correlated with charisma. Reasoning through technical problems is a different story. I think your first observation about grinding leetcode is interesting. I suspect that this is the approach people take when they're trying to get picked up by big companies (FAANG or whatever). Programming problems become a quick way of winnowing the field for companies that have a highly process-oriented approach to hiring. My own experience has been in small companies, where being able to get in the door and make progress through the interview process is often dependent on one's personal connections/network, creativity and so on. So my advice to the OP would be to leverage your network and try to get inside companies connected to people you know. Maybe look at smaller companies that aren't necessarily tech companies, but have a strong need for tech?
- troebr 3y ago
  > competence is often inversely correlated with charisma Source needed. I've been working in tech for 15+ years, alongside highly charismatic and competent people, terrible engineers with less charisma than my coffee pot, and everything in between. You do not need to be charismatic to be a good engineer, but also it certainly doesn't hurt, and friendly teammates make for a better team atmosphere. If I'm considering two candidates otherwise similar, I'm going to go with the one that's more pleasant to work with.
  - WindyLakeReturn 3y ago
    If we assume they are two normal distributed characteristics that aren't related, then it is a natural consequence once you select for those who are at the top of either distribution. Someone in the top 10% of competency or charisma will have average distribution of the other. If you consider the full population, you'll find no relationship, but because you are only look at the top 10% of each, those in the top 10% of one will be average in the other and vice versa. While some (~10% of each top 10% group) will be represented in the other group, you'll still find that they are more likely to be at the bottom of the group in the second group. The end result is that if you only plot the data for the top 10% of each group, there will be an inverse correlation. This can hold true even if there is a positive relationship between the two characteristics depending upon the strength of the relationship and how selective you are in selecting the top of each group. This leads to some interesting results, such as when fruits are grown for look and shelf life risk losing taste and flavor despite these factors being unrelated.
cloverich 3y ago
> would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems. No, they want the code to match their expectations. I interviewed last year, and breezed through the early and behavioral stuff, occasionally being up leveled or oddly positive feedback in the process. They'd often quickly move from interviewing to selling me, talking openly about (relatively good) salary, etc. Then I'd do the leet code* part and lol, bye bye. And after about 10+ rejections, as I got better (and similar) coding questions, suddenly that all changed. Rejections became offers, "not good enough" became "one of the best ever" -- same person, same(ish) questions. They all just care a LOT about the quality and speed of the coding part (along with the level of style and communication they expect). Its not unreasonable, I guess. Its odd, its frustrating. Maybe its accurate. But its best to accept what it is, get REALLY good at the coding part, and you'll get a lot more wiggle room if you're bad at the other parts. And if like me, you are great at the other parts, expect to do a lot of interviews to get the offers, and / or a lot of practice (but I strongly recommend interviewing first, as demoralizing as it is, because the companies you like tend to all ask same style of questions, I practiced tons of stuff I didnt end up using). *They were rarely leet code, usually more realistic coding questions. But same vibe.
- WinLychee 3y ago
  Thank you for this anecdote. This is where I am currently at, but I don't feel discouraged at all, I feel up to the challenge! I am finding the process of learning fun and I am in fact improving a ton at the fundamentals. My speed is improving quickly and pattern recognition is developing. I can glance at a problem at now have an intuition for what shape of solution it has.

WinLychee 3y ago

No, the first round is usually a timed coding interview where the goal is to get an optimal solution as fast as possible. You should not be talking much with the interviewer. The intro (if there is one) is a quick exchange of names and last job worked at, then immediately diving into coding problem. You cannot start with a naive solution, interviewer will ask you to skip and go straight to optimal (this happened to me more than once). If you solve that, they ask followup questions to probe your knowledge, and if you beat that, you get a second problem. After that might be more rounds of coding, system design, and hiring manager interview. The part where you can be charismatic is once you pass the initial technical bar(s). The talking/behavior is a later point in time and is relatively easy IMO. Examples of questions I've been asked: 1) https://leetcode.com/problems/non-overlapping-intervals/ https://leetcode.com/problems/non-overlapping-intervals/ 2) https://leetcode.com/problems/design-add-and-search-words-data-structure/ https://leetcode.com/problems/design-add-and-search-words-da... 3) https://leetcode.com/problems/detect-cycles-in-2d-grid/ https://leetcode.com/problems/detect-cycles-in-2d-grid/ 4) https://leetcode.com/problems/evaluate-reverse-polish-notation/ https://leetcode.com/problems/evaluate-reverse-polish-notati... 5) https://leetcode.com/problems/word-search/ https://leetcode.com/problems/word-search/ So nothing too hard but you have to instantly solve it, and optimally. The hardest one I got was some type of AI search problem, where you have to find a way to navigate obstacles in a 2d grid, and another geometry problem I've not seen before. Along with this questions like: what pitfalls arise in concurrency? Explain how you would design a pointer type that can be shared between threads, what is epoll? How do you debug a distributed system? etc.

throwaway2037 3y ago
Jesus Christ: Where are you interviewing? This sounds more like Stephen King's The Long Walk, than a job interview! Do they hold a gun to your head while you regurtitate the optimal solution?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fnimick 3y ago
  Have you interviewed recently? The vast majority of companies won't even have a conversation with you until after you've jumped through this.
  - jkachmar 3y ago
    fwiw in my experience it's entirely possible to avoid this if you don't submit an application "cold" (i.e. through the careers page), but through a recruiter or referral _IF_ you have a strong portfolio of open source work and/or exposure in technical spaces. i'm more than happy to do take-home assignments or complete reasonable timed assessments, but i have (politely) refused to complete leetcode-style gotcha screens when they have been presented to me as "just another part of the application process". idk, though. maybe that's a privileged statement based on my position, but from what i can tell grinding leetcode seems to be much less reliable these days & the toll it takes on a lot of folks is pretty significant.
  - komali2 3y ago
    I have but haven't had anyone ask me leetcode questions yet. Everyone's just been asking about my precious jobs. I also have an ok amount of public projects, maybe that's why? If someone asked my to do a leetcode style problem I'd politely refuse, and likely end the interview. I went through that kind of job hunt at the expense of my mental health and confidence in myself as an engineer once. It was one of the most degrading experiences of my life (so in all not a bad life to be fair). I'll never do it again.

rootusrootus 3y ago

> I would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems. My guess, as someone who has occasionally been the hiring manager, is that this is true, but so is the leetcode crap. It's leetcode that gets you far enough to meet someone who matters. It's charisma and reasoning ability that will get you an offer. I've met plenty of applicants who could give me superficially correct answers, but with any kind of detailed conversation it became clear that this was basically all they could do. When I hire someone for my team, I don't want leetcode answers, I want someone who can solve problems. I want someone that seems like they'll work well on the team. I want someone low maintenance and at least adequately productive. But this is just a medium sized software company and not a FAANG.

adriand 3y ago

> I would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems. As someone who has interviewed many software developers, I can assure you that charisma is not something that experienced hiring managers in tech are expecting in the candidate pool. For sales positions, sure. For coding, though, competence is often inversely correlated with charisma. Reasoning through technical problems is a different story. I think your first observation about grinding leetcode is interesting. I suspect that this is the approach people take when they're trying to get picked up by big companies (FAANG or whatever). Programming problems become a quick way of winnowing the field for companies that have a highly process-oriented approach to hiring. My own experience has been in small companies, where being able to get in the door and make progress through the interview process is often dependent on one's personal connections/network, creativity and so on. So my advice to the OP would be to leverage your network and try to get inside companies connected to people you know. Maybe look at smaller companies that aren't necessarily tech companies, but have a strong need for tech?

troebr 3y ago
> competence is often inversely correlated with charisma Source needed. I've been working in tech for 15+ years, alongside highly charismatic and competent people, terrible engineers with less charisma than my coffee pot, and everything in between. You do not need to be charismatic to be a good engineer, but also it certainly doesn't hurt, and friendly teammates make for a better team atmosphere. If I'm considering two candidates otherwise similar, I'm going to go with the one that's more pleasant to work with.
- WindyLakeReturn 3y ago
  If we assume they are two normal distributed characteristics that aren't related, then it is a natural consequence once you select for those who are at the top of either distribution. Someone in the top 10% of competency or charisma will have average distribution of the other. If you consider the full population, you'll find no relationship, but because you are only look at the top 10% of each, those in the top 10% of one will be average in the other and vice versa. While some (~10% of each top 10% group) will be represented in the other group, you'll still find that they are more likely to be at the bottom of the group in the second group. The end result is that if you only plot the data for the top 10% of each group, there will be an inverse correlation. This can hold true even if there is a positive relationship between the two characteristics depending upon the strength of the relationship and how selective you are in selecting the top of each group. This leads to some interesting results, such as when fruits are grown for look and shelf life risk losing taste and flavor despite these factors being unrelated.

cloverich 3y ago

> would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems. No, they want the code to match their expectations. I interviewed last year, and breezed through the early and behavioral stuff, occasionally being up leveled or oddly positive feedback in the process. They'd often quickly move from interviewing to selling me, talking openly about (relatively good) salary, etc. Then I'd do the leet code* part and lol, bye bye. And after about 10+ rejections, as I got better (and similar) coding questions, suddenly that all changed. Rejections became offers, "not good enough" became "one of the best ever" -- same person, same(ish) questions. They all just care a LOT about the quality and speed of the coding part (along with the level of style and communication they expect). Its not unreasonable, I guess. Its odd, its frustrating. Maybe its accurate. But its best to accept what it is, get REALLY good at the coding part, and you'll get a lot more wiggle room if you're bad at the other parts. And if like me, you are great at the other parts, expect to do a lot of interviews to get the offers, and / or a lot of practice (but I strongly recommend interviewing first, as demoralizing as it is, because the companies you like tend to all ask same style of questions, I practiced tons of stuff I didnt end up using). *They were rarely leet code, usually more realistic coding questions. But same vibe.

WinLychee 3y ago
Thank you for this anecdote. This is where I am currently at, but I don't feel discouraged at all, I feel up to the challenge! I am finding the process of learning fun and I am in fact improving a ton at the fundamentals. My speed is improving quickly and pattern recognition is developing. I can glance at a problem at now have an intuition for what shape of solution it has.