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If we lived in a world where money wasn't so important I would fully agree with you. But it is. I can't earn the same as you all can because I don't live in t

If we lived in a world where money wasn't so important I would fully agree with you. But it is. I can't earn the same as you all can because I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. So I agree with some other comments here. No it's not really a choice. Choosing to earn less and hope for a lottery ticket win like being an early employee in a unicorn startup is not a real plan. It's wishful thinking. I hate this is the world we live in and my soul dies a bit every day I have to waste my talents writing useless software, but there's no real choice.

giantg2 3y ago
At least you have talents. Imagine being in your 30s with a family to support and no real career future - bad reviews, bad organizations structure, shitty technology/systems, and no skills to move elsewhere.
neogodless 3y ago
> No it's not really a choice. Hard disagree. Have never worked for "terrible big company" (though some mediocre medium companies!) But outside of the super high cost of living areas like NYC and San Francisco, it's trivially simple (if not easy) to live on $50-60K USD each year (adjust this number for inflation as needed) while still enjoying yourself, having high performance technology, doing some travel, etc. You can't buy every damn thing you want or live like a millionaire, but you can live a great life. How many software / engineering jobs in the U.S., excluding terrible big tech companies, pay more than $60k USD per year? Almost all of them. In fact, it's not hard to make well over $100k. And live on half that. So you don't have to work forever just because you're not making $500k USD each year at some huge terrible tech company.
- anvil-on-my-toe 3y ago
  $60-100k salary is not enough to support a family and retire; it's probably not enough for a single person to make meaningful progress towards retirement because at that level of pay home ownership is constantly out of reach and inflation outpaces wage growth. It's sacrificing your life so someone else can get rich.
  - neogodless 3y ago
    In today's environment, home prices really seem to be getting nuts. As I said, anyone in software is likely making over $100K. A $500K house with 20% down would have a P&I payment of $2,715 / month (at 7.2%, plus taxes/insurance.) That's less than $33K / year. (I bought my first house for $155K making $55K / year, and my second house for $390K making $100K.) If you're making over $100K, and spending under a third of it on housing, you should be able to afford to live, unless you're careless with your money. I don't think I'm making any sacrifices in my life, because I don't think of the things you can overspend on as sacrifices. As I said, I eat well (at home and at restaurants), I travel, I have great technology / toys. And at 44 I have a 7 figure net worth. Because I'm still spending under $65K USD / year, I could likely live off investments in a few more years, though being in software, it's easy to continue contracting on my own terms and having extra money.
    - anvil-on-my-toe 3y ago
      $100k for a down payment - how many years of saving does that take and what happens to that $500k price tag during those years of saving? One hardship like a medical issue, a setback in employment, or a child you weren't ready for, then what? And I'm not sure you could find a one bedroom, one bathroom for $500k in a city with tech jobs.
      - neogodless 3y ago
        In places where houses are $500K, rent is probably $2000 / month. (More like $1200 - 5000 / month, but depending on the size, location, amenities, luxuriousness of fixtures, etc.) If you make barely $100K, and are spending $24K on rent, let's say you spend half of the rest on living. That leaves you with $38K savings per year. So it takes you 32 months to save up $100K for a down payment. The secret is don't spend all of the money you make. Well it's not a secret, but it's also not "normal." It's culturally normal to spend all of your money, and then wonder why you can't build up savings. But if you're a software engineer with an income of 6 figures, you really should be able to figure out how to live a good life without spending every last dollar.
- Draiken 3y ago
  You can always lower your standard of living, sure. But that's a different conversation IMO. I guess technically that's a choice, but it's so bad in the long term I personally can't consider it valid.
  - neogodless 3y ago
    Can you elaborate? As I've never raised my standard of living to spending over $100K / year, I don't exactly know what I'm missing. I think more to your point, yes there is a choice - to make $500K at a "big bad tech company" and then spend like there's no tomorrow on things that you feel are worth spending all that money on, hoping that it makes up for the 40 hours you spend working (and maybe hating?) Or you enjoy your 40 hour job, make less, spend less. But spending money doesn't have a direct and equal correlation with life satisfaction. I spend about $65K / year (for two people, no kids), and I feel like I have an amazing life, and spending a bunch more money would, at best, have small incremental returns on life satisfaction.
    - Draiken 3y ago
      Of course! I have also never raised my spending to anything close to that. Nor I have the choice of making $500k (I wish). When I mention standard of living I don't mean spending like crazy. I mean not having to constantly worry that if you lose your job you can't make your mortgage in a few months. I save around 50% of my salary and I'd save even more if I didn't have a kid and wasn't the sole provider in my home right now. Not because I wouldn't love to be living like a king, but because for me that's the only option I have to afford a life long term. What if I die? What if I get hurt and can't work anymore? What if me or my wife gets sick and we can't treat it with the limited free healthcare we have access to? Even barring that. I absolutely hate that I have to give away the prime hours of my day to ensure me and my family can simply survive. I don't want to do that forever. I'd much rather use all I know to build software that actually makes a difference. Read more, experience life more. Travel at least once in my life. Enjoy life while I'm not declining physically and mentally. I could definitely earn less and live a less stressful life in a better company if I wanted to. But that's the kind of decision that will most likely come back to haunt me and my family in the long term. Maybe I get very lucky and none of those things happen, and all the time I suffered through those soulless jobs was not needed. But in my view that's a risk I'm willing to take. To your point, if you are talking about simply getting all that extra money and spend it all without a care, I agree. That's a choice but one I don't have the same sympathy for.
lapcat 3y ago
> I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. > So I agree with some other comments here. No it's not really a choice. Literally hundreds of millions of Americans retire on much less than than BigCo compensation.
- Draiken 3y ago
  Are they retiring with the same standard of living they had before? Can they sustain a medical emergency? Can they pay for their kids college? I'm sure some can do all this. But I'm pretty sure most can't.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > Are they retiring with the same standard of living they had before? This is a strong indicator that choice is a factor, despite your protests to the contrary. But what exactly do you mean by "standard of living"? For example, when you're employed, you have to live where the jobs are, no matter how expensive, unless you can get remote work. Whereas when you're retired you can live anywhere, perhaps a place that is both less expensive and warmer. Retired people seem less obsessed with collecting more material goods (which are often "labor saving" devices, of little relevance to those who aren't laboring) and focused more on enjoying life, traveling, spending time with family, etc. Is that a "worse" standard of living? And the children are presumably living on their own, so there's less need for bigger homes. (Who wants to spend a bunch of time, effort, and money maintaining a big house when you're older and also traveling quite a bit?) > Can they sustain a medical emergency? Have you heard of Medicare? > But I'm pretty sure most can't. Based on what? Do you have economic statistics to back up your belief?
    - Draiken 3y ago
      You're telling me most retired Americans have more than hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings? I'm not gonna dive into stats for that since I'm not an American, but I would be thoroughly surprised.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Even in the US. It isn't like these opportunities are everywhere. As much as people pretend, it is in fact not easy to just uproot your family and move across the country to work at a challenging startup. So there are good engineers that get stuck in BigCorp Jobs that do suck your soul, just like these online rants depict. Even stepping back and forgetting the ranting. All big human organizations, eventually become bureaucratic, and locked into hierarchies, and have a difficult time making decisions. And all of these things make IT and writing software very difficult. And, because of individual constraints on geography, family, etc.. good engineers do get stuck in these big organizations, and tend to suffer.
lolinder 3y ago
> I can't earn the same as you all can because I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. I work from home for a mid-sized company for <=40 hours a week. I turn off my computer at 5pm and don't think about work until 9am the next morning. I work with people I like and we get stuff done. And in spite of all that, we're hardly impoverished—my current forecast is I can retire 10 years early at this rate. Tech salaries are good everywhere in the US, they're just not as insane as they are in Silicon Valley. I could probably retire even earlier if I were willing to enter the rat race, but I'd rather be there for my kids' childhoods than resurface from the grind just in time to send them off to college. In other words, it's absolutely possible to choose to avoid it, and it doesn't even require much sacrifice.
- Loughla 3y ago
  For context outside of tech. I have a super flexible job with amazing benefits. I haven't missed a single thing my kids have done, unless I chose to. And I'll work until I'm 75. I say this not out of being bitter, but for the context that many (probably most) people who do what they love to do don't get the massive paychecks even mid-tier tech jobs get. Context is everything.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    To be honest it vastly depends on what you expect to need in retirement. Based on my current salary and estimated retirement payment (which some online calculator calculated at ~2/3rds my income) I'm still slightly below what I should be saving for that. But by then I will both need more money to take care of family (hopefully) and less money since I should have long paid off my house and car by then. My salary is much higher than household average but far from unheard of in tech. There are definitely some scrappy college grads getting offers higher than it. and I have 3+ decades to increase it.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
      You only expect to need one car from now through the end of your retirement?
throaway234 3y ago
> If we lived in a world where money wasn't so important... Money being important is not part of the world, it's part of you. You even say so a few lines later: > ... I don't want to work forever. So yes, you indeed have no choice but to treat money as important because... you've chosen to treat money as important. I'm offering this in the hopes that you can stand back and look at your need from a distance. What are other ways to satisfy this need without you writing useless software _and_ without money being the main constraint? Get creative!
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Money is kind of important, though, at least to those of us who don't want to depend on a soup kitchen. Look, money isn't everything. This isn't a video game, where the highest score wins, and you chase points just for points. But money lets you buy things, and some of those things are important - food for yourself and those who depend on you, shelter, healthcare. (But there's a bunch of stuff that money can buy that isn't important, and learning to let go of those things is really healthy.) So: Money is important, because some of the stuff it can buy is important. That's not going to change any time soon.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >So yes, you indeed have no choice but to treat money as important because... you've chosen to treat money as important. yes, I have chosen to treat the ability to have a roof over my head as important. Rent in my area is 2000+ minimum so I at the very least am recommended to make 60k+ in salary to support that. add on basic utilities (water, electricity, inernet), food above rice and beans, and maybe a little bit of premium entertainment and we're talking more around 70k+ a year. And this is all for supporting myself. If I ever want kids I either require a working spouse or to make even more money to support a full time parent. So yes, I'm talking more around 130k+ minimum. Not unreasonable in tech, but it sure does start to exceed the salary of many other industries >What are other ways to satisfy this need without you writing useless software _and_ without money being the main constraint? Get creative! With my current skillset? I suppose I embrace hustle culture and try to make a side income with my talents. try to make some small apps or games that give some continual income. Could also find an angle as a content creator. Both basically eat into my time since this is in tandem with full time work, so it doesn't really fix the problem. Despite all the obsession with FAANG, I find it harder getting responses from small studios writing not-useless software. They want very experienced personell both for branding (how many new startups have you seen with pitches of "with talent from Apple, Blizzard, Deloitte, etc.") and the fact that they need someone who can architect a project from the ground up.
Aurornis 3y ago
> I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. I find it funny that the internet exaggerations have convinced non-US people that: 1. Doing a couple LeetCode problems is the only thing interviewers look for 2. Everyone here automatically gets a high paying FAANG-like job if they can memorize enough LeetCode problems 3. All of these jobs just write useless software all day and never really do anything productive and 4. LeetCode problems are impossibly difficult and it’s a tragedy that anyone would be asked to code during a coding interview. I struggle to read these threads any more because everything seems so stretched out of proportion from the real world. If your view of what US development or interviewing culture is like comes from HN threads, you’d probably be pleasantly surprised by what it’s actually like here most of the time. The weird catastrophizing that happens on HN and Reddit is hyperbole.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  I haven't had a job interview without leetcode bullshit in about 15 years. And years before that. Basically since Joel's posts in the early 2000s. He promoted a reasonable idea-that programmers should know how to program. Then B and C players rushed to make that happen! Similar to how agile became the complete opposite of what it meant originally.
  - jdbernard 3y ago
    As a counter-point, I've almost never had a job interview depend on leetcode-type problems in my ~20 years.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      You may be focusing on the leetcode label, and not the rest of the fail-fast zingers that are ubiquitous. Only a subset are actual leetcode. The first mistake and you're done, due to the high number of applicants. If you've got networking to let you bypass the BS, that's great. But most interviews (by number) are "cold" interviews that conduct these almost exclusively. Due to lack of trust and extreme fear of failure. The only offer I've received in years was because, while they did this type of test as well, they didn't take the results too seriously. One out of maybe a hundred attempts that year.
JohnFen 3y ago
> No it's not really a choice. Of course it is. Taking leetcode job because you don't want to work forever is buying a lottery ticket. Maybe it's your ticket to financial independence, but maybe not. The alternative, of taking a more normal job that affords you a higher day-to-day happiness level but doesn't pay as much is a legitimate other option. Plus, doing that doesn't exclude being able to achieve financial independence. There's no right or wrong choice here. It all depends on your personal attitudes, goals, and tolerances. But there is a choice.
JohnClark1337 3y ago
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giantg2 3y ago

At least you have talents. Imagine being in your 30s with a family to support and no real career future - bad reviews, bad organizations structure, shitty technology/systems, and no skills to move elsewhere.

neogodless 3y ago

> No it's not really a choice. Hard disagree. Have never worked for "terrible big company" (though some mediocre medium companies!) But outside of the super high cost of living areas like NYC and San Francisco, it's trivially simple (if not easy) to live on $50-60K USD each year (adjust this number for inflation as needed) while still enjoying yourself, having high performance technology, doing some travel, etc. You can't buy every damn thing you want or live like a millionaire, but you can live a great life. How many software / engineering jobs in the U.S., excluding terrible big tech companies, pay more than $60k USD per year? Almost all of them. In fact, it's not hard to make well over $100k. And live on half that. So you don't have to work forever just because you're not making $500k USD each year at some huge terrible tech company.

anvil-on-my-toe 3y ago
$60-100k salary is not enough to support a family and retire; it's probably not enough for a single person to make meaningful progress towards retirement because at that level of pay home ownership is constantly out of reach and inflation outpaces wage growth. It's sacrificing your life so someone else can get rich.
- neogodless 3y ago
  In today's environment, home prices really seem to be getting nuts. As I said, anyone in software is likely making over $100K. A $500K house with 20% down would have a P&I payment of $2,715 / month (at 7.2%, plus taxes/insurance.) That's less than $33K / year. (I bought my first house for $155K making $55K / year, and my second house for $390K making $100K.) If you're making over $100K, and spending under a third of it on housing, you should be able to afford to live, unless you're careless with your money. I don't think I'm making any sacrifices in my life, because I don't think of the things you can overspend on as sacrifices. As I said, I eat well (at home and at restaurants), I travel, I have great technology / toys. And at 44 I have a 7 figure net worth. Because I'm still spending under $65K USD / year, I could likely live off investments in a few more years, though being in software, it's easy to continue contracting on my own terms and having extra money.
  - anvil-on-my-toe 3y ago
    $100k for a down payment - how many years of saving does that take and what happens to that $500k price tag during those years of saving? One hardship like a medical issue, a setback in employment, or a child you weren't ready for, then what? And I'm not sure you could find a one bedroom, one bathroom for $500k in a city with tech jobs.
    - neogodless 3y ago
      In places where houses are $500K, rent is probably $2000 / month. (More like $1200 - 5000 / month, but depending on the size, location, amenities, luxuriousness of fixtures, etc.) If you make barely $100K, and are spending $24K on rent, let's say you spend half of the rest on living. That leaves you with $38K savings per year. So it takes you 32 months to save up $100K for a down payment. The secret is don't spend all of the money you make. Well it's not a secret, but it's also not "normal." It's culturally normal to spend all of your money, and then wonder why you can't build up savings. But if you're a software engineer with an income of 6 figures, you really should be able to figure out how to live a good life without spending every last dollar.
Draiken 3y ago
You can always lower your standard of living, sure. But that's a different conversation IMO. I guess technically that's a choice, but it's so bad in the long term I personally can't consider it valid.
- neogodless 3y ago
  Can you elaborate? As I've never raised my standard of living to spending over $100K / year, I don't exactly know what I'm missing. I think more to your point, yes there is a choice - to make $500K at a "big bad tech company" and then spend like there's no tomorrow on things that you feel are worth spending all that money on, hoping that it makes up for the 40 hours you spend working (and maybe hating?) Or you enjoy your 40 hour job, make less, spend less. But spending money doesn't have a direct and equal correlation with life satisfaction. I spend about $65K / year (for two people, no kids), and I feel like I have an amazing life, and spending a bunch more money would, at best, have small incremental returns on life satisfaction.
  - Draiken 3y ago
    Of course! I have also never raised my spending to anything close to that. Nor I have the choice of making $500k (I wish). When I mention standard of living I don't mean spending like crazy. I mean not having to constantly worry that if you lose your job you can't make your mortgage in a few months. I save around 50% of my salary and I'd save even more if I didn't have a kid and wasn't the sole provider in my home right now. Not because I wouldn't love to be living like a king, but because for me that's the only option I have to afford a life long term. What if I die? What if I get hurt and can't work anymore? What if me or my wife gets sick and we can't treat it with the limited free healthcare we have access to? Even barring that. I absolutely hate that I have to give away the prime hours of my day to ensure me and my family can simply survive. I don't want to do that forever. I'd much rather use all I know to build software that actually makes a difference. Read more, experience life more. Travel at least once in my life. Enjoy life while I'm not declining physically and mentally. I could definitely earn less and live a less stressful life in a better company if I wanted to. But that's the kind of decision that will most likely come back to haunt me and my family in the long term. Maybe I get very lucky and none of those things happen, and all the time I suffered through those soulless jobs was not needed. But in my view that's a risk I'm willing to take. To your point, if you are talking about simply getting all that extra money and spend it all without a care, I agree. That's a choice but one I don't have the same sympathy for.

lapcat 3y ago

> I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. > So I agree with some other comments here. No it's not really a choice. Literally hundreds of millions of Americans retire on much less than than BigCo compensation.

Draiken 3y ago
Are they retiring with the same standard of living they had before? Can they sustain a medical emergency? Can they pay for their kids college? I'm sure some can do all this. But I'm pretty sure most can't.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > Are they retiring with the same standard of living they had before? This is a strong indicator that choice is a factor, despite your protests to the contrary. But what exactly do you mean by "standard of living"? For example, when you're employed, you have to live where the jobs are, no matter how expensive, unless you can get remote work. Whereas when you're retired you can live anywhere, perhaps a place that is both less expensive and warmer. Retired people seem less obsessed with collecting more material goods (which are often "labor saving" devices, of little relevance to those who aren't laboring) and focused more on enjoying life, traveling, spending time with family, etc. Is that a "worse" standard of living? And the children are presumably living on their own, so there's less need for bigger homes. (Who wants to spend a bunch of time, effort, and money maintaining a big house when you're older and also traveling quite a bit?) > Can they sustain a medical emergency? Have you heard of Medicare? > But I'm pretty sure most can't. Based on what? Do you have economic statistics to back up your belief?
  - Draiken 3y ago
    You're telling me most retired Americans have more than hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings? I'm not gonna dive into stats for that since I'm not an American, but I would be thoroughly surprised.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Even in the US. It isn't like these opportunities are everywhere. As much as people pretend, it is in fact not easy to just uproot your family and move across the country to work at a challenging startup. So there are good engineers that get stuck in BigCorp Jobs that do suck your soul, just like these online rants depict. Even stepping back and forgetting the ranting. All big human organizations, eventually become bureaucratic, and locked into hierarchies, and have a difficult time making decisions. And all of these things make IT and writing software very difficult. And, because of individual constraints on geography, family, etc.. good engineers do get stuck in these big organizations, and tend to suffer.

lolinder 3y ago

> I can't earn the same as you all can because I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. I work from home for a mid-sized company for <=40 hours a week. I turn off my computer at 5pm and don't think about work until 9am the next morning. I work with people I like and we get stuff done. And in spite of all that, we're hardly impoverished—my current forecast is I can retire 10 years early at this rate. Tech salaries are good everywhere in the US, they're just not as insane as they are in Silicon Valley. I could probably retire even earlier if I were willing to enter the rat race, but I'd rather be there for my kids' childhoods than resurface from the grind just in time to send them off to college. In other words, it's absolutely possible to choose to avoid it, and it doesn't even require much sacrifice.

Loughla 3y ago
For context outside of tech. I have a super flexible job with amazing benefits. I haven't missed a single thing my kids have done, unless I chose to. And I'll work until I'm 75. I say this not out of being bitter, but for the context that many (probably most) people who do what they love to do don't get the massive paychecks even mid-tier tech jobs get. Context is everything.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  To be honest it vastly depends on what you expect to need in retirement. Based on my current salary and estimated retirement payment (which some online calculator calculated at ~2/3rds my income) I'm still slightly below what I should be saving for that. But by then I will both need more money to take care of family (hopefully) and less money since I should have long paid off my house and car by then. My salary is much higher than household average but far from unheard of in tech. There are definitely some scrappy college grads getting offers higher than it. and I have 3+ decades to increase it.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
    You only expect to need one car from now through the end of your retirement?

throaway234 3y ago

> If we lived in a world where money wasn't so important... Money being important is not part of the world, it's part of you. You even say so a few lines later: > ... I don't want to work forever. So yes, you indeed have no choice but to treat money as important because... you've chosen to treat money as important. I'm offering this in the hopes that you can stand back and look at your need from a distance. What are other ways to satisfy this need without you writing useless software _and_ without money being the main constraint? Get creative!

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Money is kind of important, though, at least to those of us who don't want to depend on a soup kitchen. Look, money isn't everything. This isn't a video game, where the highest score wins, and you chase points just for points. But money lets you buy things, and some of those things are important - food for yourself and those who depend on you, shelter, healthcare. (But there's a bunch of stuff that money can buy that isn't important, and learning to let go of those things is really healthy.) So: Money is important, because some of the stuff it can buy is important. That's not going to change any time soon.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>So yes, you indeed have no choice but to treat money as important because... you've chosen to treat money as important. yes, I have chosen to treat the ability to have a roof over my head as important. Rent in my area is 2000+ minimum so I at the very least am recommended to make 60k+ in salary to support that. add on basic utilities (water, electricity, inernet), food above rice and beans, and maybe a little bit of premium entertainment and we're talking more around 70k+ a year. And this is all for supporting myself. If I ever want kids I either require a working spouse or to make even more money to support a full time parent. So yes, I'm talking more around 130k+ minimum. Not unreasonable in tech, but it sure does start to exceed the salary of many other industries >What are other ways to satisfy this need without you writing useless software _and_ without money being the main constraint? Get creative! With my current skillset? I suppose I embrace hustle culture and try to make a side income with my talents. try to make some small apps or games that give some continual income. Could also find an angle as a content creator. Both basically eat into my time since this is in tandem with full time work, so it doesn't really fix the problem. Despite all the obsession with FAANG, I find it harder getting responses from small studios writing not-useless software. They want very experienced personell both for branding (how many new startups have you seen with pitches of "with talent from Apple, Blizzard, Deloitte, etc.") and the fact that they need someone who can architect a project from the ground up.

Aurornis 3y ago

> I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. I find it funny that the internet exaggerations have convinced non-US people that: 1. Doing a couple LeetCode problems is the only thing interviewers look for 2. Everyone here automatically gets a high paying FAANG-like job if they can memorize enough LeetCode problems 3. All of these jobs just write useless software all day and never really do anything productive and 4. LeetCode problems are impossibly difficult and it’s a tragedy that anyone would be asked to code during a coding interview. I struggle to read these threads any more because everything seems so stretched out of proportion from the real world. If your view of what US development or interviewing culture is like comes from HN threads, you’d probably be pleasantly surprised by what it’s actually like here most of the time. The weird catastrophizing that happens on HN and Reddit is hyperbole.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
I haven't had a job interview without leetcode bullshit in about 15 years. And years before that. Basically since Joel's posts in the early 2000s. He promoted a reasonable idea-that programmers should know how to program. Then B and C players rushed to make that happen! Similar to how agile became the complete opposite of what it meant originally.
- jdbernard 3y ago
  As a counter-point, I've almost never had a job interview depend on leetcode-type problems in my ~20 years.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    You may be focusing on the leetcode label, and not the rest of the fail-fast zingers that are ubiquitous. Only a subset are actual leetcode. The first mistake and you're done, due to the high number of applicants. If you've got networking to let you bypass the BS, that's great. But most interviews (by number) are "cold" interviews that conduct these almost exclusively. Due to lack of trust and extreme fear of failure. The only offer I've received in years was because, while they did this type of test as well, they didn't take the results too seriously. One out of maybe a hundred attempts that year.

JohnFen 3y ago

> No it's not really a choice. Of course it is. Taking leetcode job because you don't want to work forever is buying a lottery ticket. Maybe it's your ticket to financial independence, but maybe not. The alternative, of taking a more normal job that affords you a higher day-to-day happiness level but doesn't pay as much is a legitimate other option. Plus, doing that doesn't exclude being able to achieve financial independence. There's no right or wrong choice here. It all depends on your personal attitudes, goals, and tolerances. But there is a choice.

JohnClark1337 3y ago

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