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I believe this is a common myth. I've spend around seven years teaching programming and people who can go from zero to decent problem solving in just six weeks

I believe this is a common myth. I've spend around seven years teaching programming and people who can go from zero to decent problem solving in just six weeks are virtually non-existent. Either it wasn't a true "zero" but rather they were really good e.g. at advanced math or physics and managed to see some parallels, or it has to be a genius. I'd be very interested in hiring such a person.

kristopolous 2y ago
Leet code is not "decent problem solving skills" but it's almost always about three types of programs: sliding window, linked list rearrangement, and BFS. The code to solve basically all of them look nearly identical after you classify it and the questions asked (what's the big O of this) are also all identical. It's an extremely narrow and teachable class of problems. There's outliers for sure but the 80th percentile are basically just the same damn things slightly rephrased. It's extremely gameable and doesn't test the kind of breadth say, fixing a crashing program would show. Here's a list of 16 https://github.com/Chanda-Abdul/Several-Coding-Patterns-for-Solving-Data-Structures-and-Algorithms-Problems-during-Interviews https://github.com/Chanda-Abdul/Several-Coding-Patterns-for-... ... That's the 99th percentile. If you think someone passing that means they can fix the conda bug in your k8s cluster or whatever real problem you have, dream on. It'd be like hiring a cook by quizzing them on the names of kitchen utensils.
- alexey-salmin 2y ago
  Well the thing is, I keep hearing about these people who can't code but excel at leetcode, even that they are mass-trained in some bootcamps, but somehow I never saw one in reality and I interviewed hundreds of people. So I'm kind skeptical this is a real issue. The other way round (people who code, but can't leetcode) I agree it's an issue. Unfortunately as noted here in comments, cost of a bad hire is much much worse than cost of a no-hire, so it's the price I'm willing to pay.
  - lll-o-lll 2y ago
    I think all leetcode gives you is a proxy for IQ in the language of code. If someone excels at leetcode, they should be relatively smart and able to write code. Excellent! That’s a something, a something you can measure. Back when I was involved in hiring, it was definitely better than not having that (at junior levels). However, the idea that “IQ is all you need” is so obviously false that I think you need to reconsider. Bill Gates famously, (infamously?), hired for IQ. Microsoft used puzzles as their IQ proxy, and I think leetcode is just a modern variant. Possibly a worse version, as training has a bigger effect. Bill Gates later would claim that he overvalued intelligence. I would say that intelligence is necessary but insufficient. We would get further, faster, with a quick IQ test and then dig into the candidates experience, communication ability and personality. No need to study! The FAANG companies all have a line a mile long of candidates willing to put up with any amount of BS for a chance to work for the name and $$. If you aren’t such a company, trying to hire that game changing person for $$’s you can afford to pay is going to require a different approach.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    > I keep hearing about these people who can't code but excel at leetcode I think the mass trained at bootcamp is an exaggeration. The best bootcampers are those that use it as an extended education from learning the traditional ways. I'm sure most people here complaining about leetcode can indeed spend 6 weeks there and be interview ready. But few have that time nor spare cash lying around for such a venture. And why should we need to spend thousands just to ace a quiz like it's some SAT? >cost of a bad hire is much much worse than cost of a no-hire, so it's the price I'm willing to pay. At this point I wonder. Hearing way more stories about "survivors" from layoffs burning out from jobs that keep promising that they'll hire more staff to help out with. When in reality they have a hiring freeze or are trying to offshore the work that ends up needing more time to be fixed. The stalls in a no-hire aren't just costing money in the lack of productivity, it's costing currently working employees who are doing 2,4, 8+ jobs without any meaningful increase in role/salary. It's not sustainable. You're draining a little bit of blood from a rock, but the rock is clearly starting to crumble.
  - kristopolous 2y ago
    No. The point is the correlation is poor between the two sets AND there's equally quantifiable things with higher correlation. If I genuinely wanted a job again all I'd do is go to one of those drilling game websites for a few nights and then say whatever the interviewer is looking for. Any test I can fail one day and pass 3 days later that is ostensibly supposed to assess whether I have skills that take 15 years to master is total bullshit.
- CoastalCoder 2y ago
  > Leet code is not "decent problem solving skills" but it's almost always about three types of programs: sliding window, linked list rearrangement, and BFS. I could be wrong, but I think dynamic-programming problems belong in that list.
batshit_beaver 2y ago
It's not "decent problem solving" that these folks demonstrate though, it's the ability to grasp and regurgitate common DSA patterns that show up in most leetcode style interviews. Does this ability make these people highly desirable hires? Should you hire such people over engineers with more real world knowledge, but who don't want to spend the time learning or practicing leetcode?

kristopolous 2y ago

Leet code is not "decent problem solving skills" but it's almost always about three types of programs: sliding window, linked list rearrangement, and BFS. The code to solve basically all of them look nearly identical after you classify it and the questions asked (what's the big O of this) are also all identical. It's an extremely narrow and teachable class of problems. There's outliers for sure but the 80th percentile are basically just the same damn things slightly rephrased. It's extremely gameable and doesn't test the kind of breadth say, fixing a crashing program would show. Here's a list of 16 https://github.com/Chanda-Abdul/Several-Coding-Patterns-for-Solving-Data-Structures-and-Algorithms-Problems-during-Interviews https://github.com/Chanda-Abdul/Several-Coding-Patterns-for-... ... That's the 99th percentile. If you think someone passing that means they can fix the conda bug in your k8s cluster or whatever real problem you have, dream on. It'd be like hiring a cook by quizzing them on the names of kitchen utensils.

alexey-salmin 2y ago
Well the thing is, I keep hearing about these people who can't code but excel at leetcode, even that they are mass-trained in some bootcamps, but somehow I never saw one in reality and I interviewed hundreds of people. So I'm kind skeptical this is a real issue. The other way round (people who code, but can't leetcode) I agree it's an issue. Unfortunately as noted here in comments, cost of a bad hire is much much worse than cost of a no-hire, so it's the price I'm willing to pay.
- lll-o-lll 2y ago
  I think all leetcode gives you is a proxy for IQ in the language of code. If someone excels at leetcode, they should be relatively smart and able to write code. Excellent! That’s a something, a something you can measure. Back when I was involved in hiring, it was definitely better than not having that (at junior levels). However, the idea that “IQ is all you need” is so obviously false that I think you need to reconsider. Bill Gates famously, (infamously?), hired for IQ. Microsoft used puzzles as their IQ proxy, and I think leetcode is just a modern variant. Possibly a worse version, as training has a bigger effect. Bill Gates later would claim that he overvalued intelligence. I would say that intelligence is necessary but insufficient. We would get further, faster, with a quick IQ test and then dig into the candidates experience, communication ability and personality. No need to study! The FAANG companies all have a line a mile long of candidates willing to put up with any amount of BS for a chance to work for the name and $$. If you aren’t such a company, trying to hire that game changing person for $$’s you can afford to pay is going to require a different approach.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  > I keep hearing about these people who can't code but excel at leetcode I think the mass trained at bootcamp is an exaggeration. The best bootcampers are those that use it as an extended education from learning the traditional ways. I'm sure most people here complaining about leetcode can indeed spend 6 weeks there and be interview ready. But few have that time nor spare cash lying around for such a venture. And why should we need to spend thousands just to ace a quiz like it's some SAT? >cost of a bad hire is much much worse than cost of a no-hire, so it's the price I'm willing to pay. At this point I wonder. Hearing way more stories about "survivors" from layoffs burning out from jobs that keep promising that they'll hire more staff to help out with. When in reality they have a hiring freeze or are trying to offshore the work that ends up needing more time to be fixed. The stalls in a no-hire aren't just costing money in the lack of productivity, it's costing currently working employees who are doing 2,4, 8+ jobs without any meaningful increase in role/salary. It's not sustainable. You're draining a little bit of blood from a rock, but the rock is clearly starting to crumble.
- kristopolous 2y ago
  No. The point is the correlation is poor between the two sets AND there's equally quantifiable things with higher correlation. If I genuinely wanted a job again all I'd do is go to one of those drilling game websites for a few nights and then say whatever the interviewer is looking for. Any test I can fail one day and pass 3 days later that is ostensibly supposed to assess whether I have skills that take 15 years to master is total bullshit.
CoastalCoder 2y ago
> Leet code is not "decent problem solving skills" but it's almost always about three types of programs: sliding window, linked list rearrangement, and BFS. I could be wrong, but I think dynamic-programming problems belong in that list.

batshit_beaver 2y ago

It's not "decent problem solving" that these folks demonstrate though, it's the ability to grasp and regurgitate common DSA patterns that show up in most leetcode style interviews. Does this ability make these people highly desirable hires? Should you hire such people over engineers with more real world knowledge, but who don't want to spend the time learning or practicing leetcode?