3 ms·
To reword it, leetcode is a barrier to entry for newcomers. It's pure gatekeeping and it says as much when people think they have to 'grind' it to have any pros
by ljm 3y ago
To reword it, leetcode is a barrier to entry for newcomers. It's pure gatekeeping and it says as much when people think they have to 'grind' it to have any prospect of a job.
It teaches you absolutely nothing about the rest of the job, around comms and leadership, which most of the time are more important than your ability to solve puzzles.
It selects for people who want to get in and want to grind.
- satvikpendem 3y agoOn the contrary, Leetcode is one of the most egalitarian ways there is for hiring applicants, because if you can pass the test, you're basically hired, at least at FAANG and adjacent. I'd hate to have employers show implicit bias through such saccharine distinctions as "personal fit."
- dev_0 3y agoWho will be hired if three candidates can pass the leetcode test?
- ljm 3y agoI think you and the other person who replied to me were dismissing the value of soft skills and the other things you need to know as a software engineer that are adjacent to writing code. To put it another way - do you have an opportunity in leetcode to say the value of solving a challenge isn’t worth the time invested?
- satvikpendem 3y agoLeetcode is the initial layer. Once you show that you can code (because many can bullshit their way through a non-technical interview, I've seen that first hand at other companies where the employee couldn't code themselves out of a wet paper bag), then you go to the later rounds to show your soft skills.
- rcarr 3y agoI think I disagree with this. I taught myself web dev mainly through Udemy courses and managed to land my first dev job through that. I've been working my way through Algomonster and Neetcode and, as someone with no formal education in computer science or programming, it's been filling in some gaps in my knowledge and I've mostly been enjoying the process. Some things I saw in the code base at my last job that I didn't comprehend fully at the time now make a lot more sense.