5 ms·

Question banks that are too big: huge variance, and OP's point stands. Question banks that are too small: leaked on eastern forums immediately, candidates show

Question banks that are too big: huge variance, and OP's point stands. Question banks that are too small: leaked on eastern forums immediately, candidates show up reading answers out to you (some of the guides include guidance on when to pretend to think, I am not kidding). The idealized version of "question banks" might work. The real one does not; you'd require employees constantly scouring forums in every language known to mankind, immediately removing anything that gets leaked. On top of that you'd probably require a competent committee overseeing all questions in the bank constantly and ensuring the lack of variance in difficulty. Source: I interviewed at and for Goog and Pltr.

boshalfoshal 2y ago
I agree with you, but I don't really see how this invalidates the style of interviews where you're presented with some timeboxed coding problem (of reasonably scaled difficulty) and are asked to solve it. There will be bad actors regardless of the interview style, thats why companies have multiple interview types/styles/rounds to sus out a candidate, as you probably know. If they BSed their way through a leetcode interview, then they probably won't make it past a behavioral interview where they have to go in depth on some past project. And if they BSed that as well as every other round, then hey maybe they are crafty enough to succeed at the actual job.
- kidintech 2y ago
  > and are asked to solve it. I think this is where our different opinions come from, while we agree on the other aspects. In my personal experience, I have never felt that the hire/no-hire decision relied exclusively on my ability of solving the presented problem; I have passed interviews where I did not solve the LC-style problem optimally but I communicated clearly, picked up on hints, was aware of when I hit "walls" and provided working but less than ideal alternatives when I could not figure out the neat tricks. Reading through the thread it seems that my experience is not universal, and the majority here have had less pleasant interviews, so I understand where you are coming from.
  - bombela 2y ago
    I have had all possible experiences. Sometimes I feel like genius and ace some leetcode with an almost novel solution. Sometimes I missunderstand the question/scope and mud myself into the hole of despair. I have been rejected for one mediocre interview among many good ones. Or the other way around accepted even though I didn't perform well. Sometimes the interviewer works with me. Sometimes against me. Sometimes a war story impresseses positively, sometimes raises suspicions. At this point it feels like gambling. I have also ran almost 400 interviews on the other side over the years, and to me it seems quite clear when somebody cannot write code at all. I like to think I am not biased. But who knows.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >Reading through the thread it seems that my experience is not universal, and the majority here have had less pleasant interviews, so I understand where you are coming from. it changes immensely based on the job market. I've defintiely tanked some inerviews hard, stumbling on softball questions that shoulda been a bullet point. But I get pretty far or even gotten offers. The last 12-18 months though? I've had interviews that felt like a dream but got zero follow up to. Been ghosted after seemingly final rounds where I spent 5+ hours on technical tests. It's not even enough to "understand the problem and communicate steps". You gotta be flawless, and you still might be cut compared to 3 years ago where a "C" performance could still land multiple offers as long as your experience made up for the quiz questions.
    - CoastalCoder 2y ago
      > it changes immensely based on the job market. I dodged the .com bust because I worked for the U.S. DoD at the time. But I got laid off for the first time during last year's "15% bloodbath". If I compare my current job search vs. all of my job searches in the past: (1) As parent comment said, the bar seems to be much higher. I've thought that I did really well on some interviews, only to not get an offer. (2) Some interview processes are way more rigorous. For a DevTech role within nVidia, I had 12 interviews + 2 take-home problems. (BTW, the take home problems were incredibly fun. Well done nVidia!) (3) I've finally accepted a job offer from a large, established tech company, and the pre-onboarding process is amazingly slow. I accepted the offer a month ago and still don't have a start date. In a better job market either (a) they'd probably work harder to be good about this stuff, or (b) I'd just take a different job because of the delay.
Rinzler89 2y ago
> leaked on eastern forums immediately What exactly are "Eastern forums"? "Eastern" what? Europe? Asia? The world?
- kidintech 2y ago
  The most common example would be 1point3acres. I'd prefer to not be more specific; I chose the word Eastern on purpose. For DEI committees reading this: I am both eastern european and asian, so I hope to be exempt from any scrutiny.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    So you wanted to say "Chinese forums" but couldn't say it out of fear?
    - kidintech 2y ago
      no. I wanted to say Eastern, as I have examples from both Asia and East Europe. I wished to not be more specific so as to not derail the discussion into "user kidintech implied that nation X has a tendency to cheat".
      - Rinzler89 2y ago
        Out of curiosity, can you share some examples from eastern Europe? Where does one find such websites? Also, IMHO, blanket generalizations like "Asia" and "Eastern Europe" in such contexts can actually be more offensive than just mentioning the one country where the thing happens since you're basically painting with tar a whole sub-continent with dozens of different countries, just for the things happening in one country. What I mean is, if by Eastern Europe, you actually mean some dodgy Russian forums, I think a lot of Eastern Europeans from Bulgaria all the way to Poland and the Baltics might feel offended of being included since we are not the same.
        kidintech 2y ago

boshalfoshal 2y ago

I agree with you, but I don't really see how this invalidates the style of interviews where you're presented with some timeboxed coding problem (of reasonably scaled difficulty) and are asked to solve it. There will be bad actors regardless of the interview style, thats why companies have multiple interview types/styles/rounds to sus out a candidate, as you probably know. If they BSed their way through a leetcode interview, then they probably won't make it past a behavioral interview where they have to go in depth on some past project. And if they BSed that as well as every other round, then hey maybe they are crafty enough to succeed at the actual job.

kidintech 2y ago
> and are asked to solve it. I think this is where our different opinions come from, while we agree on the other aspects. In my personal experience, I have never felt that the hire/no-hire decision relied exclusively on my ability of solving the presented problem; I have passed interviews where I did not solve the LC-style problem optimally but I communicated clearly, picked up on hints, was aware of when I hit "walls" and provided working but less than ideal alternatives when I could not figure out the neat tricks. Reading through the thread it seems that my experience is not universal, and the majority here have had less pleasant interviews, so I understand where you are coming from.
- bombela 2y ago
  I have had all possible experiences. Sometimes I feel like genius and ace some leetcode with an almost novel solution. Sometimes I missunderstand the question/scope and mud myself into the hole of despair. I have been rejected for one mediocre interview among many good ones. Or the other way around accepted even though I didn't perform well. Sometimes the interviewer works with me. Sometimes against me. Sometimes a war story impresseses positively, sometimes raises suspicions. At this point it feels like gambling. I have also ran almost 400 interviews on the other side over the years, and to me it seems quite clear when somebody cannot write code at all. I like to think I am not biased. But who knows.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Reading through the thread it seems that my experience is not universal, and the majority here have had less pleasant interviews, so I understand where you are coming from. it changes immensely based on the job market. I've defintiely tanked some inerviews hard, stumbling on softball questions that shoulda been a bullet point. But I get pretty far or even gotten offers. The last 12-18 months though? I've had interviews that felt like a dream but got zero follow up to. Been ghosted after seemingly final rounds where I spent 5+ hours on technical tests. It's not even enough to "understand the problem and communicate steps". You gotta be flawless, and you still might be cut compared to 3 years ago where a "C" performance could still land multiple offers as long as your experience made up for the quiz questions.
  - CoastalCoder 2y ago
    > it changes immensely based on the job market. I dodged the .com bust because I worked for the U.S. DoD at the time. But I got laid off for the first time during last year's "15% bloodbath". If I compare my current job search vs. all of my job searches in the past: (1) As parent comment said, the bar seems to be much higher. I've thought that I did really well on some interviews, only to not get an offer. (2) Some interview processes are way more rigorous. For a DevTech role within nVidia, I had 12 interviews + 2 take-home problems. (BTW, the take home problems were incredibly fun. Well done nVidia!) (3) I've finally accepted a job offer from a large, established tech company, and the pre-onboarding process is amazingly slow. I accepted the offer a month ago and still don't have a start date. In a better job market either (a) they'd probably work harder to be good about this stuff, or (b) I'd just take a different job because of the delay.

Rinzler89 2y ago

> leaked on eastern forums immediately What exactly are "Eastern forums"? "Eastern" what? Europe? Asia? The world?

kidintech 2y ago
The most common example would be 1point3acres. I'd prefer to not be more specific; I chose the word Eastern on purpose. For DEI committees reading this: I am both eastern european and asian, so I hope to be exempt from any scrutiny.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  So you wanted to say "Chinese forums" but couldn't say it out of fear?
  - kidintech 2y ago
    no. I wanted to say Eastern, as I have examples from both Asia and East Europe. I wished to not be more specific so as to not derail the discussion into "user kidintech implied that nation X has a tendency to cheat".
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      Out of curiosity, can you share some examples from eastern Europe? Where does one find such websites? Also, IMHO, blanket generalizations like "Asia" and "Eastern Europe" in such contexts can actually be more offensive than just mentioning the one country where the thing happens since you're basically painting with tar a whole sub-continent with dozens of different countries, just for the things happening in one country. What I mean is, if by Eastern Europe, you actually mean some dodgy Russian forums, I think a lot of Eastern Europeans from Bulgaria all the way to Poland and the Baltics might feel offended of being included since we are not the same.
      - kidintech 2y ago