4 ms·

A big thing is the rise and rise of bullshitters. Wall to wall buzzwords and made up stories about what they did in their last job. Leetcode filters a lot, but

by mianos 2y ago

A big thing is the rise and rise of bullshitters. Wall to wall buzzwords and made up stories about what they did in their last job. Leetcode filters a lot, but it also filters out, just as many, if not more, people who can actually do what they say.

jazz9k 2y ago
Leetcode is also there to filter out older developers. Most older developers probably never used those algorithms in college.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  example?
  - mianos 2y ago
    Example, me, I have not written a sort in C++ in 40 years. I do follow the research and often look under the hood of the libraries to get a feeling of the pros and cons to an implementation, but I have never written one from scratch, let alone in an hour in a test. I'd fail. Here is the big junior mistake, actually doing that, thinking you are going to do it better, instead of doing real work (exception: you are writing the C++ runtime).
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      Surely you have written a sort when you were in college - even if that was 40 years ago :) I see this type of a stuff as huge advantage to older developers, not disadvantage - I am older developer (50+) and I have actual had foundational CS classes in school back in the day which I am not sure how many younger developers get these days...
      - mianos 2y ago
        Of course I have. I worked in embedded systems at the start, but write one from scratch nope. I do agree with you about the lack of traditional CS. Whenever I am parsing anything, I first reach for a FSM, and none of all the bullshit string copy, string trim, strim unpad, string unpad in the middle. I also know enough about modern lock free algorithms to know that some 10 minute scribble and a bunch of buzzwords does not scratch the surface.
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        In general, scanning/lexing uses FSMs, parsing is done with push down automata (PDAs) (you need a stack to parse, you don’t really need a stack to scan).
        mianos 2y ago
        You are making an example of my point? When parsing something like a comma separated list I generally don't get carried away with anything more with a switch/case state machine.
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        You need a stack because you could have sub expressions that also have commas. You only get away with an FSM if your syntax doesn’t best anything. So seeing “use FSM for parsing” will obviously raise lots of an eyes will CS people, especially compiler people.
        mianos 2y ago
        A CSV file has sub expressions? Even if it has commas in quotes, it's a comma seen in the state 'collecting text'. There is no need for anything more complicated than an FSM. Maybe there is in leetcode. One character of pushback is not a 'stack' unless you are answering a Google interviewer.
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago
sublinear 2y ago
All juniors will seem like bulshitters almost by definition. There's little reason to expect otherwise. If bullshitters are making it into your organization at the higher ranks that's something else... :(
- mianos 2y ago
  Bullshitters making it into the higher ranks is another thing altogether. That's an unfortunate side effect of 'promotion of the uninvolved'. Look at google now. Their project management is based on this system: https://en.wikimannia.org/Six_phases_of_a_big_project https://en.wikimannia.org/Six_phases_of_a_big_project
blablabla123 2y ago
It's a very strange filter though. At my current job there's a multi-stage hiring process with leetcode tests. And yet most people lack substantial domain knowledge, it's really frustrating. In fact the code base hardly has a visible architecture
- wildrhythms 2y ago
  Indeed, Leetcode tests algorithmic knowledge but no domain knowledge. I work professionally as a front-end developer and I dread losing my job because I could never pass a Leetcode interview. I can thoroughly reason about web development, I know the stack front and back, it's my passion... but a Leetcode interview doesn't test for that at all. I think every tech-related company looked at the high bar at big tech, assumed the algorithm questions was the only signal (it's not), and have been poorly aping that ever since. I also think a simple 20 minute discussion between a hiring candidate and an engineer simply discussing how to build something will give you better hiring signals than any Leetcode challenge.
  - mianos 2y ago
    Yep, it's just some "cargo cult". I attended a meetup a number of years ago at a local trading firm, well known for a barrage of impossible puzzles and some simpler, like implement an order book for a matching engine. One of their senior guys did a talk on their trading system. I asked a basic question and the answer was so naive it was shocking. Maybe their best people don't do the talking.

by mianos 2y ago

jazz9k 2y ago

Leetcode is also there to filter out older developers. Most older developers probably never used those algorithms in college.

bdangubic 2y ago
example?
- mianos 2y ago
  Example, me, I have not written a sort in C++ in 40 years. I do follow the research and often look under the hood of the libraries to get a feeling of the pros and cons to an implementation, but I have never written one from scratch, let alone in an hour in a test. I'd fail. Here is the big junior mistake, actually doing that, thinking you are going to do it better, instead of doing real work (exception: you are writing the C++ runtime).
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    Surely you have written a sort when you were in college - even if that was 40 years ago :) I see this type of a stuff as huge advantage to older developers, not disadvantage - I am older developer (50+) and I have actual had foundational CS classes in school back in the day which I am not sure how many younger developers get these days...
    - mianos 2y ago
      Of course I have. I worked in embedded systems at the start, but write one from scratch nope. I do agree with you about the lack of traditional CS. Whenever I am parsing anything, I first reach for a FSM, and none of all the bullshit string copy, string trim, strim unpad, string unpad in the middle. I also know enough about modern lock free algorithms to know that some 10 minute scribble and a bunch of buzzwords does not scratch the surface.
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        In general, scanning/lexing uses FSMs, parsing is done with push down automata (PDAs) (you need a stack to parse, you don’t really need a stack to scan).
        mianos 2y ago
        You are making an example of my point? When parsing something like a comma separated list I generally don't get carried away with anything more with a switch/case state machine.
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        You need a stack because you could have sub expressions that also have commas. You only get away with an FSM if your syntax doesn’t best anything. So seeing “use FSM for parsing” will obviously raise lots of an eyes will CS people, especially compiler people.
        mianos 2y ago
        A CSV file has sub expressions? Even if it has commas in quotes, it's a comma seen in the state 'collecting text'. There is no need for anything more complicated than an FSM. Maybe there is in leetcode. One character of pushback is not a 'stack' unless you are answering a Google interviewer.
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago

sublinear 2y ago

All juniors will seem like bulshitters almost by definition. There's little reason to expect otherwise. If bullshitters are making it into your organization at the higher ranks that's something else... :(

mianos 2y ago
Bullshitters making it into the higher ranks is another thing altogether. That's an unfortunate side effect of 'promotion of the uninvolved'. Look at google now. Their project management is based on this system: https://en.wikimannia.org/Six_phases_of_a_big_project https://en.wikimannia.org/Six_phases_of_a_big_project

blablabla123 2y ago

It's a very strange filter though. At my current job there's a multi-stage hiring process with leetcode tests. And yet most people lack substantial domain knowledge, it's really frustrating. In fact the code base hardly has a visible architecture

wildrhythms 2y ago
Indeed, Leetcode tests algorithmic knowledge but no domain knowledge. I work professionally as a front-end developer and I dread losing my job because I could never pass a Leetcode interview. I can thoroughly reason about web development, I know the stack front and back, it's my passion... but a Leetcode interview doesn't test for that at all. I think every tech-related company looked at the high bar at big tech, assumed the algorithm questions was the only signal (it's not), and have been poorly aping that ever since. I also think a simple 20 minute discussion between a hiring candidate and an engineer simply discussing how to build something will give you better hiring signals than any Leetcode challenge.
- mianos 2y ago
  Yep, it's just some "cargo cult". I attended a meetup a number of years ago at a local trading firm, well known for a barrage of impossible puzzles and some simpler, like implement an order book for a matching engine. One of their senior guys did a talk on their trading system. I asked a basic question and the answer was so naive it was shocking. Maybe their best people don't do the talking.