4 ms·

> was willing to submit to it for the approval of this company I abstain, myself. I have too much real work that I'd like to push forward to be able justify sp

> was willing to submit to it for the approval of this company I abstain, myself. I have too much real work that I'd like to push forward to be able justify spending weeks of free time on fake work.

paulcole 3y ago
Great! Isn’t that the point? That some people who really don’t want the job won’t invest a bit of their time and people who do really want the job will?
- TheCleric 3y ago
  Sure. If what the company doing the hiring is explicitly trying to get employees who are willing to do that. However if they just want knowledgeable, quality employees, some will self select out of that process.
- majormajor 3y ago
  Don't forget about the people who don't have to spend weeks or months focused just on interview prep to do well on the average leetcode question... That's who interviewers are looking for. Now, a case can be made that there aren't that many of those people and you might not need them anyway, but... if you can spend a few weeks to catch up that's not all bad compared to what high-end job offers in other professions demand of your resume. The more we keep the interview process something demonstrable vs status/prestige/name-check/references, the better.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    These jobs pay a lot of money. If you want one bad enough you’ll find the time to practice.
  - dinobones 3y ago
    If you want to receive top compensation, and work at the Meta/Roblox/AirBnBs etc, you will need to be able to solve 2 Leetcode medium questions in 45 minutes, correctly and optimally. I work for a big tech company where people smell their own farts and think they are geniuses even though they work on CRUD interfaces for admin portals for Cloud. The interview process is well known. I have seen wrong solutions made by these genius question writers in their own doc, or where they find out 4 weeks later that the time complexity of their own solution is not really what they thhink it is. Do you really think in a company with 50k+ software engineers, where many studied English (but like to conduct CS interviews like they’re CS researchers), that everyone will know and understand details like; how the expected linear time complexity of quickselect works? It’s a nightmare; it’s blind leading the blind. It’s been completely gamified at this point and the only way to win is to play the game, maybe 10 years ago you could’ve passed on your own merit of having a CS degree and knowing basic DS&A, but I promise you that is almost the case nowhere anymore.
    - lupire 3y ago
      I'm sure they exist, which is great, but I have never had a non-STEM shot on my dev team at any job. I'm sure you met a few flawed people like you describe. But they are not a large fraction.
- respectmysoa 3y ago
  [dead]
- pavlov 3y ago
  That selects for people who aren’t holding productive jobs currently. It’s a reasonable filter for junior positions, but seems counterproductive if you’re looking to fill a position where experience would be valuable.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    No, it selects for people who want the job.
    - ludwik 3y ago
      i. e., people who don't have other good options. I don't know why you would want to select for that
      - paulcole 3y ago
        You think nobody leaves a good job for a better one and jumps through hoops to do so?
- abathur 3y ago
  I doubt it? My willingness to practice leetcode isn't correlated with my interest in new work or the work any given job post describes. It's also not correlated with my willingness to invest time in exploring the position. 6 hours of leetcode practice teach me nothing about a position, the work it entails, the problems the company is grappling with, and the people I'd be in the trenches with. 6 hours in conversation or working close to real problems are higher leverage. I have meaningful open source work with real users in the queue, and blog posts that won't write themselves. I feel like it's pretty reasonable to sort positions that don't compel low-leverage busywork that doesn't help me assess the position above those that do. Sure, they might mean to exclude me, but I'm skeptical.
  - jakjak123 3y ago
    Same, I'd rather spend 3 hours working with the potential team than spend 12 hours practicing leetcode. If you want to see my code, I have plenty of public domain projects freely available.
    - lupire 3y ago
      I also have plenty of your public domain projects freely available!
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    I also think that might be true. Adding friction filters out candidates who have more choices, which are likely to be the top performers. Hardly anybody wants to work specifically for one particular company, so the people willing to continue despite friction may be more likely to be middle performers.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    > My willingness to practice leetcode isn't correlated with my interest in new work or the work any given job post describes. The job requires you to practice leetcode in order to get the job. If you don’t want to practice leetcode then you don’t want the job.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    > The daycare center aesthetic and all this weird pronoun crap achieves the same ends. If everyone around you is an androgynous alien speaking a novel language and communications mishaps will get you fired, you won't feel comfortable working there. I'd argue that if you can remember people's names, you can remember their preferred pronouns - and that if you can't, or refuse to because you think it's "weird crap", they won't feel comfortable with you working there either.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      I'm terrible with names, but that's my own problem. I don't do voicemail or pronouns either. The rest of it is being ostracized for refusing to acknowledge the black floor tiles are lava. Redefining the reality of others is literal brainwashing. In fostering this sort of environment you're running a cult, not a company.
      - lostlogin 3y ago
        > I don't do voicemail or pronouns either. You don’t use any pronouns?
        pavel_lishin 3y ago
        She says she doesn't, but I is clearly a pronoun.
      - plagiarist 3y ago
        It's funny to whine that, "redefining the reality of others is literal brainwashing," but you obviously feel quite comfortable redefining the reality of the people you misgender for them.
        3y ago
- karmajunkie 3y ago
  if that’s the only way you’re able to discern a good candidate from a bad one, that speaks far more loudly about you than any candidate.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Isn’t that the point? That some people who really don’t want the job won’t invest a bit of their time and people who do really want the job will? Would you rather have an employee who wants the job, or an employee who is good at the job?
  - paulcole 3y ago
    The former if they are good enough to do the job.

> was willing to submit to it for the approval of this company I abstain, myself. I have too much real work that I'd like to push forward to be able justify spending weeks of free time on fake work.

paulcole 3y ago

Great! Isn’t that the point? That some people who really don’t want the job won’t invest a bit of their time and people who do really want the job will?

TheCleric 3y ago
Sure. If what the company doing the hiring is explicitly trying to get employees who are willing to do that. However if they just want knowledgeable, quality employees, some will self select out of that process.
majormajor 3y ago
Don't forget about the people who don't have to spend weeks or months focused just on interview prep to do well on the average leetcode question... That's who interviewers are looking for. Now, a case can be made that there aren't that many of those people and you might not need them anyway, but... if you can spend a few weeks to catch up that's not all bad compared to what high-end job offers in other professions demand of your resume. The more we keep the interview process something demonstrable vs status/prestige/name-check/references, the better.
- paulcole 3y ago
  These jobs pay a lot of money. If you want one bad enough you’ll find the time to practice.
- dinobones 3y ago
  If you want to receive top compensation, and work at the Meta/Roblox/AirBnBs etc, you will need to be able to solve 2 Leetcode medium questions in 45 minutes, correctly and optimally. I work for a big tech company where people smell their own farts and think they are geniuses even though they work on CRUD interfaces for admin portals for Cloud. The interview process is well known. I have seen wrong solutions made by these genius question writers in their own doc, or where they find out 4 weeks later that the time complexity of their own solution is not really what they thhink it is. Do you really think in a company with 50k+ software engineers, where many studied English (but like to conduct CS interviews like they’re CS researchers), that everyone will know and understand details like; how the expected linear time complexity of quickselect works? It’s a nightmare; it’s blind leading the blind. It’s been completely gamified at this point and the only way to win is to play the game, maybe 10 years ago you could’ve passed on your own merit of having a CS degree and knowing basic DS&A, but I promise you that is almost the case nowhere anymore.
  - lupire 3y ago
    I'm sure they exist, which is great, but I have never had a non-STEM shot on my dev team at any job. I'm sure you met a few flawed people like you describe. But they are not a large fraction.
respectmysoa 3y ago
[dead]
pavlov 3y ago
That selects for people who aren’t holding productive jobs currently. It’s a reasonable filter for junior positions, but seems counterproductive if you’re looking to fill a position where experience would be valuable.
- paulcole 3y ago
  No, it selects for people who want the job.
  - ludwik 3y ago
    i. e., people who don't have other good options. I don't know why you would want to select for that
    - paulcole 3y ago
      You think nobody leaves a good job for a better one and jumps through hoops to do so?
abathur 3y ago
I doubt it? My willingness to practice leetcode isn't correlated with my interest in new work or the work any given job post describes. It's also not correlated with my willingness to invest time in exploring the position. 6 hours of leetcode practice teach me nothing about a position, the work it entails, the problems the company is grappling with, and the people I'd be in the trenches with. 6 hours in conversation or working close to real problems are higher leverage. I have meaningful open source work with real users in the queue, and blog posts that won't write themselves. I feel like it's pretty reasonable to sort positions that don't compel low-leverage busywork that doesn't help me assess the position above those that do. Sure, they might mean to exclude me, but I'm skeptical.
- jakjak123 3y ago
  Same, I'd rather spend 3 hours working with the potential team than spend 12 hours practicing leetcode. If you want to see my code, I have plenty of public domain projects freely available.
  - lupire 3y ago
    I also have plenty of your public domain projects freely available!
- plagiarist 3y ago
  I also think that might be true. Adding friction filters out candidates who have more choices, which are likely to be the top performers. Hardly anybody wants to work specifically for one particular company, so the people willing to continue despite friction may be more likely to be middle performers.
- paulcole 3y ago
  > My willingness to practice leetcode isn't correlated with my interest in new work or the work any given job post describes. The job requires you to practice leetcode in order to get the job. If you don’t want to practice leetcode then you don’t want the job.
jstarfish 3y ago
[flagged]
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  > The daycare center aesthetic and all this weird pronoun crap achieves the same ends. If everyone around you is an androgynous alien speaking a novel language and communications mishaps will get you fired, you won't feel comfortable working there. I'd argue that if you can remember people's names, you can remember their preferred pronouns - and that if you can't, or refuse to because you think it's "weird crap", they won't feel comfortable with you working there either.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    I'm terrible with names, but that's my own problem. I don't do voicemail or pronouns either. The rest of it is being ostracized for refusing to acknowledge the black floor tiles are lava. Redefining the reality of others is literal brainwashing. In fostering this sort of environment you're running a cult, not a company.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      > I don't do voicemail or pronouns either. You don’t use any pronouns?
      - pavel_lishin 3y ago
        She says she doesn't, but I is clearly a pronoun.
    - plagiarist 3y ago
      It's funny to whine that, "redefining the reality of others is literal brainwashing," but you obviously feel quite comfortable redefining the reality of the people you misgender for them.
      - 3y ago
karmajunkie 3y ago
if that’s the only way you’re able to discern a good candidate from a bad one, that speaks far more loudly about you than any candidate.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Isn’t that the point? That some people who really don’t want the job won’t invest a bit of their time and people who do really want the job will? Would you rather have an employee who wants the job, or an employee who is good at the job?
- paulcole 3y ago
  The former if they are good enough to do the job.