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> No home study grind on puzzle problems is a substitute for years of practical experience, which is what most teams actually hope for in their higher-level eng

by mekoka 2y ago

> No home study grind on puzzle problems is a substitute for years of practical experience, which is what most teams actually hope for in their higher-level engineers. Perhaps. I had 9 years of practical experience myself before going through that grind (leetcode + system design) some years ago. It is no substitute, but you don't come out of it the same engineer. You read, write and understand code differently. Also, I have to admit that with the new perspective, there's a reason why I'd probably hire the newbie who's done this over the experienced engineer who hasn't (and maybe continues to dismiss it). The two gaps are not equivalent. In my experience the newbie will probably cover many of the necessary bases on the job fairly quickly with mentorship. I can also appreciate that 9 years of practical experience didn't help me cover DS&A or system design. I doubt that any kind of mentorship would've helped me either. Learning this stuff is a grind, plain and simple. A newbie will also make mistakes that I can understand. I can see them pick a heap, or a linked list because it's the algorithmic sound choice for the problem. Then I can point out that for the specific use case, an array might not be as efficient, but it's a good trade-off to simplify the code. They will understand this. But an engineer that indiscriminately reaches for arrays and hash for any situation is a different story. Exponential inner loops for big searches, huge recursive calls. Those things show up in code written by experienced coders IRL. You click on a button and wait 5 seconds for the response. I'm not sure who's faking it until they make it, but based on my own experience, I'd say that perhaps I successfully faked it for 9 years.

gsbcbdjfncnjd 2y ago
That’s a false dichotomy. I’ve never felt the need to do the DS&A grind for one of these roles and I would never dream of writing the ungodly inefficient code you just imputed to my peer group.
swatcoder 2y ago
In this example, we're talking about an L6/staff role. If the role is correctly staffed, nobody should have to be looking over that person's shoulder questioning data structure choices and algorithm efficiency regardless of what the person's background is. It's absolutely the case that there are people with 9 years of experience who are not prepared to meet the needs of that role. There are people with 19 and 29 and 49 years of experience that fit into that bucket. Practice alone doesn't get you there. But as you note, as a rule, you expect your bright, leetcode-grinding "newbie" to need mentoring and oversight to compensate for their propensity to rely on shallow theory where they don't know better from experience. That's not someone a team wants in a L6/staff role either! For high level roles, you need bright, curious people who are experienced but not rigid. Admittedly, there's only so many of them, but when you start having to fill those roles with people that don't meet each of those criteria, you can't be surprised when the team's morale and output suffer. Which is exactly what we see as an outcome of the recent boom (and each prior one), because you end up having the blind lead the blind through the minefield of engineering.. and that's going to be messy no matter how clever or book-studied those folk happen to be.
RussianCow 2y ago
> Exponential inner loops for big searches, huge recursive calls. Those things show up in code written by experienced coders IRL. The thing is, those things are easily fixable after the fact. A bad architecture is not, and without practical experience designing systems in the real world, you don't have those instincts to guide you towards the correct choices because you haven't made any mistakes to learn from.
- lkjdsklf 2y ago
  And thanks to modern CPU design, they are often actually faster than more complicated data structures. I know in interviews they are looking for the solution that is the most efficient by big O standards so that’s what I use But big O is often just not a reflection of actual performance on modern computers
socksy 2y ago
Did you study CS before you went into the workforce?
3np 2y ago
> I'd say that perhaps I successfully faked it for 9 years. Sounds like it. IME >90% of everything you encounter is typically covered in university DS&A introdoctory courses and the grind would be part of the studies. The good news is it's never too late to start again.

by mekoka 2y ago

gsbcbdjfncnjd 2y ago

That’s a false dichotomy. I’ve never felt the need to do the DS&A grind for one of these roles and I would never dream of writing the ungodly inefficient code you just imputed to my peer group.

swatcoder 2y ago

In this example, we're talking about an L6/staff role. If the role is correctly staffed, nobody should have to be looking over that person's shoulder questioning data structure choices and algorithm efficiency regardless of what the person's background is. It's absolutely the case that there are people with 9 years of experience who are not prepared to meet the needs of that role. There are people with 19 and 29 and 49 years of experience that fit into that bucket. Practice alone doesn't get you there. But as you note, as a rule, you expect your bright, leetcode-grinding "newbie" to need mentoring and oversight to compensate for their propensity to rely on shallow theory where they don't know better from experience. That's not someone a team wants in a L6/staff role either! For high level roles, you need bright, curious people who are experienced but not rigid. Admittedly, there's only so many of them, but when you start having to fill those roles with people that don't meet each of those criteria, you can't be surprised when the team's morale and output suffer. Which is exactly what we see as an outcome of the recent boom (and each prior one), because you end up having the blind lead the blind through the minefield of engineering.. and that's going to be messy no matter how clever or book-studied those folk happen to be.

RussianCow 2y ago

> Exponential inner loops for big searches, huge recursive calls. Those things show up in code written by experienced coders IRL. The thing is, those things are easily fixable after the fact. A bad architecture is not, and without practical experience designing systems in the real world, you don't have those instincts to guide you towards the correct choices because you haven't made any mistakes to learn from.

lkjdsklf 2y ago
And thanks to modern CPU design, they are often actually faster than more complicated data structures. I know in interviews they are looking for the solution that is the most efficient by big O standards so that’s what I use But big O is often just not a reflection of actual performance on modern computers

socksy 2y ago

Did you study CS before you went into the workforce?

3np 2y ago

> I'd say that perhaps I successfully faked it for 9 years. Sounds like it. IME >90% of everything you encounter is typically covered in university DS&A introdoctory courses and the grind would be part of the studies. The good news is it's never too late to start again.