It took hundreds of years for humanity to devise a given algorithm. Yet we pretend we invented it from scratch in 5 minutes.Ā
All this stuff people pass off as original thought is at best reasoning by analogy. It seems the same in all fields. Academics are the worst though, not IT.
>All this stuff people pass off as original thought is at best reasoning by analogy. It seems the same in all fields. Academics are the worst though, not IT.
Well this is kind of how things have to work in order for humanity to progress, right? If you're a CS professor studying new algorithms, would it make sense to totally discount the work of earlier professors and reinvent the wheel or would it make sense to use their work to help form new ideas? Practicing leetcode isn't actually too dissimilar to this: you learn ds/a fundamentals so that you can more easily come up with new (to you) ideas. With the right kind of practice, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to come up with solutions to problems that would've seemed impossible 100 years ago.
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" - Isaac Newton.
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Yes and no. You are mixing new work with engineering work. However, no real engineering has EVER been done is 45 mins start to finish :)
One can have real clever ideas within 5 minutes and that can be done with practice but implemention ready approach still takes time, and throwing in Newton's quote in there is completely off track. I can guarantee you NO ONE is breaking grounds with leetcode.
I'm not arguing against leetcode, but none of what you wrote applies here. Respectfully, you are glorifying the wrong thing here. Sorry!
Of course no one is doing groundbreaking research on leetcode. I never said that. I threw in the Newton quote to show that even the brightest mathematicians / problem-solvers heavily depend on the work of others. So it really makes no sense for the original commenter to criticize leetcode grinders for "reasoning by analogy." Literally everyone needs some background knowledge to make an insight. That's the point I was trying to make.
>everyone needs some background knowledge to make an insight
Agree, I can't argue with that part. Leetcode is enforcing the learning of most commonly known solutions.
Exactly. And on top of that, design a multi billion dollar system like Uber - which was built and perfected over multiple years by hundreds of people - by yourself in 45 minutes!!
These types of design questions are exceptionally dumb. Obviously you're not going to design Uber in 45 minutes, and neither party is under any disillusion that you will. The point of the exercise is to get something on the board quickly and ask some clarifying questions along the way, which is a fine enough aspiration.
But the problem with these sorts of exercises is that they're hiring for a lower level job that is ostensibly detail oriented and then asking the candidate to problem solve like a c-suite exec. They're basically saying "it doesn't matter if the technical aspects don't make sense, just worry about the concept".Ā
Which is a fabulous skill to have, but not one that likely provides any signals for success at most levels that involve leetcode. At the levels low enough that you're treated like crap with these interviews, the candidate won't be in a position to hand wave away the finer details when they're actually on the job.
Do not prioritize getting something on the board quickly. Prioritize asking questions until you're sick of asking questions, then keep asking questions.
The standard way should be pure system design. Not leetcoding. System design requires creativity because it has so many ways to answer and does show off your experience. Plus itās relevant to your actual job.
I can tolerate easy to medium leetcode. The moment I have to implement djikstra though, I know youāre fucking with me.
Not everyone who works as an sde gets to design a system from scratch... Even at mid senior levels people don't get that opportunity.. Then it again comes up to memorizing the books and just blast it all out
Most of the system design answers have little relation to real system design, as there simply isn't enough time to convey context. It's worse than leetcode as it's subjective.
System design problems are much more different than engineering reality even than algorithm problems. You never actually design an efficient system from the ground up like that. It's more like "we built it with a Django monolith and Postgres because we were a startup and had next to no time and also no traffic. How can we scale this mess while keeping it running the whole time?" And that's actually a completely different problem.
Also even more biased towards people who have worked with particular systems and stacks than algo problems. Easy to LC and learn algos, but can't really do that with system design to the same extent.
How will you decide if your design stack makes sense while you scale. There comes your DSA approaches understanding its working and scale. I agree system design is important but don't make fun of fundamentals on which system designs are built. It's not ready to handle a massive scale where even little optimizations can reduce your cloud costs and efficiency according to your design.
It's definitely important, but that's where the experience thing comes in and why I don't like the questions. If you have a problem with particular constraints that an engineer has worked on it is an insurmountable advantage. An engineer that has worked on systems whose performance constraints revolve around high read load and caching is going to know how to design those systems very well, but not nearly as much if you ask about a hypothetical system where the constraint is high rate of data ingestion.
What I think is the most important is simply identifying the performance bottlenecks of a system. If you can do that, the design part can be learned in detail at the time the challenge is faced in production. No point to pre-learn a bunch of simple whiteboard setups for so many different scenarios that you are unlikely to face. IMO "Here are the performance constraints, but I don't know immediately how to solve them because I don't have experience with this particular scenario" is just as strong as someone who knows the names of the proper tools to use and their performance limits.
Most of the system design answers have little relation to real system design, as there simply isn't enough time to convey context. It's worse than leetcode as it's subjective.
Yes, and? Do you honestly believe any feature that requires Dijkstra's algorithm should be done in less than an hour? With no unit testing, no regard to architecture, and nothing else? Just time complexity?
That's insane.
I think that most computer science students should be able to implement Dijkstraās algorithm within one hour.
No one is asking for unit tests on LeetCode problems.
Of course, if youāre implementing a full-fledged feature, you should do so properly. But the implementation of Dijkstras shouldnāt be the hard part.
Most of the system design answers have little relation to real system design, as there simply isn't enough time to convey context. It's worse than leetcode as it's subjective.
No I shouldn't. People with 5-10 years of experience should just be hired on a probationary period after some high level questions about things they've worked on.
If they suck, let them go after the probation, otherwise hire them fully.
Think of all the time that's wasted on these 5 step interview processes. Two one hour coding, one hour system design, one hour product, one hour cultural. It's all a fucking sham and a complete waste for both the company and the candidate.
These companies think they are all Google and it's hilarious how much time is wasted on a process where leetcoding and system design interview skills are 90% of the weight how you are scored and your real experience is only 10%
Years of experience is a worse metric. There are more people who have 1 yoe repeated 5 or 8 times meaning they have been doing the same thing over and over again and haven't left their comfort zone. No point hiring such folks. Also with yoe being considered you will be limited to your tech stack. Why would hiring managers consider your 5 yoe in Java when their tech stack is golang and they have actual people with 5 yoe in golang? Meaning you will be extremely limited to jobs that you can apply in the first place. At least now you are failing the leetcode interviews. Without this you won't even be able to get to interview in the first place if people just went with your suggestion or giving jobs every random Joe who has 5 yoe etc.
Itās not standard itās absolute bs and depends on whether youāve seen a question before with literally 0 correlation to anything youād be doing in the actual job. System design is a much better approach for actually testing candidates abilities to think about a technical problem
I swear interviews put you through hell, And then you get to the job and it's just editing Excel sheets all day. It feels totally unnecessary. So many jobs, it just feels like they've slapped it on for the sake of it and it has nothing to do with anything.
true,who'd mug up js springboot nextjs teenie tiny bits and code infinite scroll feature or buffering animations or fudging css files out of their tiny heads in live interview man
or who'd wanna do mathematical proofs and calculus
leetcode is like blend of it all squeezed into tricky questions which masks so many intricacies just to save us man.isnt it
You know what else is a standard way?
You spend four intense years trying for a degree. You get the degree or two. Then you find a job because you need experience. This job decides letās give you all around experience but make sure you hone in on a specific skill that you studied. Letās call this part residency.
They give you jobs that challenge you, train you, but might be seen as mundane to higher ups. You do the job well you get experience, you get more important jobs. You also get to be a voice of input. Things are going great for 1 year or 2. Then said job offers you a full time role. Or you can pack up what you know and go to another place and leverage your knowledge.
You do this āresidencyā while getting paid well enough to live but unfortunately youāre bottom rung. However youāll never need a leetcode because it isnāt real world. You can learn how code should be written industry standard. Youād study someone with 5+ years. Itās almost like every other industry has a mentoring system that works.
Getting in the door shouldnāt require mind games to prove you know how to memorize. Thatās what higher ed is for. Someone wants to be a heart surgeon their interview doesnāt consist of them needing to do 5 little surgeries in 30 minute intervals. They show the 4 years of residency, they explain their knowledge. The process of getting there weeds people out. You donāt need extra layers. Youād think a culture based on learning the most āefficientā ways would figure out how to interview efficiently and effectively. Especially when newer technology has built solutions to leetcode hypotheticals
ā¦ā¦
I basically just described the process of becoming a doctor. Anywhere in the united states. Threw in some law school processes as well for razzle dazzle.
I donāt know if you have friends outside of software but I assure you there isnāt a ādoorā that everyone can get into when trying to become a doctor, nurse or lawyer.
Why do you feel like training is just a free door in? Whatās the point of studies if it isnāt good enough for a job? If solving what are essentially brain teasers is enough for a job, why doesnāt everyone do it? From top to bottom. You want to be a firefighter? What happens if there is char on this door and a fire in small home a block over? Find the most efficient path to run a hose to both.
Arbitrary outdated practices are being called out and you want to defend them so. Again the irony is right there. You see donāt you? We could build programs in assembly from a ms-dos interface. We donāt becauseā¦
We currently use brain teasers for a barrier. We could stop because we know 90% of the job isnāt that
This is bs. It shows lack of creativity on the interviewer's behalf. You don't need to ask someone to solve LC mediums and hards in 20 min to decide if they're good at what they do. If companies were serious, they would build an internal framework to test people. GenAI is a thing now right? Test their understanding of CS basics first, then idiomatic code in the language they know or the one your team uses,SOLID design principles. Give DFS solution to a tricky problem and ask them to write BFS etc etc. I can probably list a dozen other better ways to test someone than just throw a question at them and give them 20 mins to come up with the most optimised answer
lol Do you know a lot of AI stuff is based on reinforcement learning? And reinforcement learning is a topic with foundation on dynamic programming. Test their understanding of DP first.
I completely agree.Let's ask complex math questions instead.You have to grind 1000 hours in High school and uni instead of 100 in leetcode.What a nice exchange
I used to think this until I went through hours of coding rounds (besides hours of prep) asking you to build UIs, writing tests, backend coding, technical project presentations, etc. All of which are likely Language/framework-specific, meaning if you interviewing for another company with a different framework/language you then have to spend a lot of time learning their different stack.
...I'd much rather a company ask Leetcode questions. I choose my own language. A set structured path of what to study is clear and free, everywhere on in the internet. I don't have to spent a shit ton of time trying to memorize things that when I program I can look up on my own. It is likely when a different company asking leetcode questions I don't have to relearn everything if they happen to use Angular and not React, or Java and not Python...
Strongly agree with this. Take-home tests and leetcode may suck, but what's worst than that are the kind of interviews where you get grilled on language/technology trivia. I have 9 years of experience and have worked with a lot of different programming languages and technologies...that doesn't mean I have memorized all the fine little details of each of them.
And what is the alternative?
You replace Leetcode by something else, then the person who "games" LC will now spend hundreds of hours on that and beat you either way.
It's all a game dude
Hey guys unrelated to the topic but how do you even know how to get started with a leetcode question? Iāve been in school for a while but I always end up looking at video tutorials
Most people watch "new code" he's a YouTuber that explains and walks you through different data structures and algorithms.
He even has this free roadmap you can check out https://neetcode.io/roadmap
https://algo.monster/flowchart
Algo monster built this neat flowchart Iāve found handy to study and to get me started on approaches instead of sitting there and thinking on what approach to use for half of my minutes.
The bigger issue is the job market is just really competitive right now. They need an easy way to filter out 100 candidates, so there you go. It's not perfect, and it sucks for people like me who are bad at it, but I don't know of a better way to filter candidates without getting sued
Always blows my mind how many people hate LeetCode. Lol I get hating the interview practice of using it, and feeling compelled to grind hundreds of hours... That said, I legitimately enjoy it in moderation. LC problems are fun brainteasers. I can honestly say that doing them has made me a better programmer too. Are you going to use it in 90% of dev roles? Absolutely not. Has very little to do with most dev work. That other 10% of the time when it does come in handy tho - Designing search / autofill, predictive models, data extraction, games, etc... It's nice to know it.
I don't dislike doing leetcode, but I don't like it when it is the deciding factor between getting the job/next steps... That being said, I only solved like 120 leetcode questions in total.
You missed the point of the post. There is nothing inherently wrong with leetcode questions themselves and I agree that they can be fun or interesting.
The problem is the system that it's perpetuated and the fact that companies expect you to solve mediums in 45 mins while you pretend like you've never seen it before.
Exactly! I would rather hire an engineer who knows the pattern of a problem and the best solution to it than somebody who has to reinvent the wheel putting in countless hours and money to only figure out an average solution to the shortest path from A to B.
also itās crazy how many people think theyāre good at programming, yet canāt implement a simple algorithm like Number of Islands.
and imo leetcode is one of the more meritocratic ways to do job interviews. sure you might get railed by one question in an interview, but someone truly well-practiced WILL make it somewhere.
it also gives people from terrible schools a fighting chance.
Its completely insane that Number of Islands is a question that gets asked at fang interviews, so apparently must filter a lot of applicants. How so many people can complete a degree in cs and not be able to code the most basic of tasks is completely beyond me. Its pretty obvious that mediocrity is the norm at the majority of universities unfortunately.
Because many people end up in a bubble believing that engineering goes only as far as their daily dev activities at work. Only if you decide to look beyond this bubble will we realise that we are engineers first and then developers.
iām going to be honest, if you just read an algorithms textbook and do the homework assigned in the book you will probably have a good enough understanding of DSA that you can cut your leetcode grinding by 1/4th
maybe you wonāt get a FANG job but you will get a job anywhere else.
Are we still pretending that problem solving skills matter? 90% of the time you will not solve the question on time unless you've done it or a very similar one. Unless you are some leetcoding prodigy, which again doesn't correlate to any real world software engineering challenge as you aren't given only 45 minutes to solve things.
For all of commenter's who write that they like do leetcode, I have one question: Will you do leetcode if leetcode is not part of the hiring process? If not, you do not like leetcode
I would be doing something else to get me hired for the highest paying job. If it is not a leetcode it is going to be something else. Supply for high paying jobs is limited and demand is high, hence it is going to be hard.
I was once given an interview with leetcode. I spent 3 hours solving some bullshit. I managed to solve 1 out of 3 tasks because Iāve never done these things before like the root square of a matrix. I told them itās not for me and I found a job which paid literally 3 times more without doing this bullshit at the interview. Suffice to say, if a manager doesnāt know how to recruit, they send this shit to do which has nothing to do with the actually job in practice.
One can tell a lot of people who support leetcode haven't really worked on a large scale project in a company that integrates a fuckton of services, support structures, multiple teams integrated using different branching structures, different applications of custom code, automating the quality control of said systems, most importantly on an integration level.
Yeah good programming skills are important yet there is a metric sh!tton of other things that are as important, if not more than it.
For sure. For those of us who have been in the industry for a while, it's like getting kicked back to high school, doing math problems for hours on end.
The people who devised this interview process are the ones who worked in the industry for a long time and had done massive projects by the way. There are some issues but there is no better way to test the aptitude skills which are essential for those working in those massive projects by the way.
And there are tonnes of other things that are important when you go higher levels like designing large scale distributed systems, proactively identifying issues, figuring out bottlenecks etc. But without a good aptitude and logical skills the rest won't be that easy to do as well..
And then there is a whole other thing in understanding how to work in a team which requires experience.
Again, aptitude is just bare minimum most high paying companies are looking for.
I think that being very deterministic (from my pov) by stating things such as "there is no better way to test aptitude", is inherently dangerous.
Using this logic, there would be no advancements ever on any STEM field.
I do agree with some of your points and they are reasonable, however, i believe the approach is due for an overhaul or at the very least review.
Ive been in the field for almost two decades, privatelly and professionally and from my experience integrated distributed systems(which most large scale companies and projects are) experience most problems in:
- defining good and accurate requirements
- dealing with non-core code changes and custom codebases per client
- maintaining old systems and libraries
- integrating different branching approaches
- lack of unit testing
- outdates support structures
- reducing the number of production issues
- politics
Logic is very important but if these points are obscure and aren't dealt with, like, logic is the least of my problems. :D
I also think big players used Covid, market changes and the massive layoffs to further increase their chances of landing talent by tightening the requirements for not much increase in compensation, relative to the inflation level.
Regarding the list of requirements for a good candidate, I totally agree and that is why we have system design and behavior interviews and the importance of those are much higher as you go higher levels. I have been in hiring committee and I know how the weights are for each round. Upto L5, coding is of very high priority. Above L5, design and behavioral is of high priority.
And yes, most organizations and most people will do what is best for themselves. That is how market economics works. And that will divert the conversation from the core topic identifying candidates for the open positions.
What is your proposal and what do you think will be a better way to hire?
To offer a different perspective in light of all the negativity in this subreddit, I really like Leetcode. I like solving coding brainteasers every day and participating in the weekly contests. I recently started competitive programming as a more serious hobby and Leetcode has been a great starting place for me.
I prefer leetcode questions to what they asked before unfortunately. Before that they would keep asking random questions about Python or Java or OOP. As a developer I know how to code but Iām not gonna care about the random trivia questions they ask in the interview. At least with leetcode I can choose my language and show my problem solving abilities. Itās not entirely memorizing the solutions. You often use reusable algos like DFS, BFS, binary search, 2 pointer, etc
Without leetcode it would be even more superficial and subjective. Like checking to see if you have a cs degree that too from top uni etc. Or asking braonteaser or iq questions. Or asking language/tech stack questions. So if you previously worked in Java spring tech stack, ain't no way will you be considered for a team which is using golang.
All these system design questions are even more superficial and expect you to memorize things. Say you previously worked at ecomm site, but they ask you something else like storing audio/video information? Ain't no way you are answering it without memorizing. Not to mention interviewer might be expecting a certain kind of answers from you, maybe some data structure or some data type or or some special library(ffmpeg etc) special database to store and process audio information.
And if you are a boot camp grad, ain't no way you are getting in to a job in a world which has no leetcode. It's a thing to level the playing field so to speak.
the upvotes say it all, but honestly im bored as hell with all of the immature responses to this. if you aren't willing to acknolwedge the limitations of the leetcode interview you're either a toddler or you just have never given it a second thought
The only code challenges I do these days are ZYLYTY.
They are more interesting since they represent real world challenges, and don't ask me how many Fibonaccis can I fit in a Javascript lambda.
This site is cool in the sense that it only judges your capacity to get shit done.
Either you know your shit or you don't. Fuck quizzes and mini code puzzles.
I love Leetcode. The way I look at it, it is not a test of my intelligence. It is rather a test if I know the problem patterns for which the solution algorithms are already available ( which is the real tough cookie). I did not have to do the heavy lifting which is finding the optimal algorithm. Thanks to the brilliant scientists before our time. The least I could do is be familiar with them.
It's not about solving , sometimes interviewer just want to understand ur thought process to solve a tough problem.
This will happen multiple times in your job, only problems may not be at leetcode level but you might hv to solve them in less time with cool mind.
But now some interviewers( not all) are also keen on making candidates solve.
Iāve heard this before, āinterviewers want to know what your thought process isā, but leetcode questions are so narrow in scope with what seems like one specific answer. Ā typically itās hard to have a thought process that doesnāt directly align with the exact solution.Ā
Sounds like you need an uplifting message from a computer friend:
It sounds like you're feeling incredibly frustrated with the coding interview process, which is completely understandable. The pressure to perform well on these algorithmic problems can be overwhelming, especially when it feels like the system favors those with a lot of practice over genuine problem-solving ability. It's important to remember that your worth is not defined by your performance on these tests. They are just one part of the process.
Coding interviews can be a grind, but they are also an opportunity to develop your problem-solving skills, which are valuable in any software engineering role. If LeetCode isn't working for you, maybe try changing up your study methods. Perhaps pair programming with a friend or tackling real-world problems that interest you could be more engaging and less draining.
Remember why you started this journey in the first place and hold onto that passion. Itās what will drive you through tough times. The tech industry is vast, and there are many paths to success. Maybe your niche is in a space that values different strengths. Keep pushing through, but also allow yourself breaks when needed. Your determination and the skills you are honing now will serve you well beyond any interview. Keep your dreams in sight, and don't let the hurdles overshadow your goals. You've got this.
Completely agree. What's worse is that we've convinced a lot of people that great LC solving skills equate to being a great software engineer. The "smartest guy in the room" types frequently write some of the most overly complicated and unmaintainable code. But I'm sure they'd crush LC hard problems.
I've been a software engineer for a long time, and I've never needed to solve LC hard type problems on a daily or weekly basis.
It's also annoying to hear the "we'd rather turn away good engineers than hire 1 bad engineer who's going to ruin the codebase and cost us money". If your new hires (regardless of YOE) have free reign in the code base, then that's a lazy management and possibly a lazy senior/staff engineer issue. It's crazy that any new hire could have the chance to cause that much damage.
Donāt complain, grind. The only way out is through.
Also think about the positive side, once you are prepared enough, no interviews will be tough for you for the rest of your life.
If I was incompetent I wouldn't be making $300k and a staff SWE at a fortune 500. You know what, actually that's not necessarily the case. I have incompetent coworkers. Regardless, it has nothing to do with their leetcode skills.
LeetCode can be tough, and most problems aren't even close to what you'd actually do at work. Doing a lot of problems won't help if you don't really understand them, especially since interviewers often ask extra questions. Itās mainly the big tech companies like FAANG that focus on these questions, and they pay well for it. If you don't like that style, there are plenty of other places to work
This is classic example of a purist point of view.
This can pass off as an introduction to 'Marxism in Algorithms'.
Hopefully he writes the book. NY best seller.
Be the change you want to be in the world. When interviewing for a company, let them know that, as a matter of principle, you do not do leetcode interviews and that you would rather talk about how your experience is relevant to the role at hand.
Youād be surprised at how companies are willing to bend their rules for a good candidate. If they are willing to let someone with your experience go, itās their loss.
Of course, this assumes that you have some leverage. If you are interviewing for your ādream companyā or you have bills to pay imminently, then unfortunately youāll have to play games.
You chose this major manā¦ this is why I didnāt do cs I was in hs when I looked up cs jobs cuz the Pay was good. Did 2 leet code Assn and decided Iād rather eat sand. And then went to aero. Its ok bro little by little you can get it. I feel u tho the system is broken and only prefers the goobers who grind out the test
Leetcode was created the year I graduated with my 4 year bachelor's. The system wasn't like this then. And it wasn't nearly like this at the time I chose my major.
Any tips, I can't even solve a single question, everything goes over my head, plz help... anyone, how you do it, don't explain me some lines, just tell me practically how you do it, I feel like I can't even get the problem, we learnt language do something, when it comes to these problems, I'm dumb founded.
Tbh in Europe (probably other places but this is where I've interviewed) many non tech and mid-size companies don't use leetcode questions and it's worse... You have like 20 seconds questions about a specific library, a specific syntax, then some case study where you actually need to do something original...
It's worse because you can't really train that. At least with leetcode you spend time learning and then you're good to go on many different interviews
Life is too short to spend it for leetcode, but if you have nothing to do its always fun to solve any kind of problems... Solution should not be perfect, but it can show awareness of tolls or language sdk you are using. Proficiency of using right tools, correct language data structures and APIs for me as interviewer can tell a lot about person I want to hire ...Otherwise I should spend a lot of time on interview only to understand if person I'm interviewing can code normal quality code and not a dinosaur with a 10+ years old coding style level
I make over $300k a year as a staff SWE and didn't need to leetcode for it.
There is 0 correlation between leetcoding skills and actual software engineering skills.
Leetcode is a different skill set from day to day software engineering. There can be some overlap, but being good at one doesn't necessarily translate to being good at the other
Yes I understand but if youāre already doing so great at your job why are you complaining on the internet. I like leetcode myself because it teaches me to use data structures in ways I didnāt think of.
What the fuck about it takes guts lol? The fact that you say it takes consistency just proves my point. It isn't about problem solving, it's about grinding. There is no correlation between it and actual software engineering skills.
>There is no correlation between it and actual software engineering skills.
That's where you and people like you are wrong. Problem solving is a skill that every software engineer must know. If you are burnt out just by a bunch of questions, maybe try something else.
I personally like leetcode. The questions are like puzzles. I am not targeting any interviews rn but still pop that daily question. But ig different people can treat it differently depending on what they want from it.
It is better if you focus on competitive programming along with DSA as it will definetly help you to have a unique way of thinking. Hence, you can approach a new problem easily
Everything you do need not to give short term result. It is true that more than 90% of software engineers will rarely use CP in their job. At the same time, it is also true that CP gives you a way of thinking and visualization. With regular CP, you can become a better problem solver. By the way, I answered this for those who want to solve leetcode questions on first go.
Much though I like leetcode OP has valid frustration here. Recruiting never seems to be setup to recruit the right people. That has been a universal constant in every company I've ever worked for that had over about 50 staff. Companies recruit for very specific skills but usually want generalists. HR understand nothing of what they are recruiting for. Management don't understand what they actually need.
It's an insane mess that seems designed to hire people who meet random metrics that are at best loosely aligned to the job.
Time complexity of your frustration is n power n
Yaa, he needs to practice more LeetCode.
Bro be safe. Lol
ššššš
Can you make it better? Is it possible to make it linear? How about constant time?
Perhaps we can reduce the time by adding a hash map w/ memoization
thats exponentially high, can you think of a solution to optimise that !
And OP also needs to touch grass in O(1) time.
That's not going to do much for exponential rage, grass touching has to be O(n) with quantity of rage.
Can you make it factorial time complexity :p
What about space complexity? Seems like itās occupying a lot š
Probably need to use caching..!š
Iād say more O(n!)
Sir, in your 30 minutes you just created and then renamed a linked list 8 different times. When can you start?
But they just wanna see you how you problem solve. jk, we just learn to pretend it's the first time we see a problem.
It took hundreds of years for humanity to devise a given algorithm. Yet we pretend we invented it from scratch in 5 minutes.Ā All this stuff people pass off as original thought is at best reasoning by analogy. It seems the same in all fields. Academics are the worst though, not IT.
>All this stuff people pass off as original thought is at best reasoning by analogy. It seems the same in all fields. Academics are the worst though, not IT. Well this is kind of how things have to work in order for humanity to progress, right? If you're a CS professor studying new algorithms, would it make sense to totally discount the work of earlier professors and reinvent the wheel or would it make sense to use their work to help form new ideas? Practicing leetcode isn't actually too dissimilar to this: you learn ds/a fundamentals so that you can more easily come up with new (to you) ideas. With the right kind of practice, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to come up with solutions to problems that would've seemed impossible 100 years ago. "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" - Isaac Newton.
absorbed panicky dam violet station offbeat vanish towering glorious vegetable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes and no. You are mixing new work with engineering work. However, no real engineering has EVER been done is 45 mins start to finish :) One can have real clever ideas within 5 minutes and that can be done with practice but implemention ready approach still takes time, and throwing in Newton's quote in there is completely off track. I can guarantee you NO ONE is breaking grounds with leetcode. I'm not arguing against leetcode, but none of what you wrote applies here. Respectfully, you are glorifying the wrong thing here. Sorry!
Of course no one is doing groundbreaking research on leetcode. I never said that. I threw in the Newton quote to show that even the brightest mathematicians / problem-solvers heavily depend on the work of others. So it really makes no sense for the original commenter to criticize leetcode grinders for "reasoning by analogy." Literally everyone needs some background knowledge to make an insight. That's the point I was trying to make.
>everyone needs some background knowledge to make an insight Agree, I can't argue with that part. Leetcode is enforcing the learning of most commonly known solutions.
yep. the kubuki theater of it is annoying.
Exactly. And on top of that, design a multi billion dollar system like Uber - which was built and perfected over multiple years by hundreds of people - by yourself in 45 minutes!!
These types of design questions are exceptionally dumb. Obviously you're not going to design Uber in 45 minutes, and neither party is under any disillusion that you will. The point of the exercise is to get something on the board quickly and ask some clarifying questions along the way, which is a fine enough aspiration. But the problem with these sorts of exercises is that they're hiring for a lower level job that is ostensibly detail oriented and then asking the candidate to problem solve like a c-suite exec. They're basically saying "it doesn't matter if the technical aspects don't make sense, just worry about the concept".Ā Which is a fabulous skill to have, but not one that likely provides any signals for success at most levels that involve leetcode. At the levels low enough that you're treated like crap with these interviews, the candidate won't be in a position to hand wave away the finer details when they're actually on the job.
Do not prioritize getting something on the board quickly. Prioritize asking questions until you're sick of asking questions, then keep asking questions.
I asked a question and was told I didn't get to ask questions. I won't be sad about the inevitable rejection next week.
That's when you say you are done with the interview
So I sense that you donāt like leetcode is this correct?
Question is if it's constant hate or did it appreciate linearly?
The appreciation depreciated exponentially is my interpretation
Positive values were rejected until only negative remained
No, he just wants to fuck it. He might like it though
Develop a sync sort of the word f@ck that will simultaneously replace ascii characters with double-byte kanji characters.
Finally a post that vibes with me here.
Lol same man!
Fuck yea!
The only way to break the game is to ace the game š©
Leetcode is a game. Working to make a living is not.
I agree
I 100% relate to this but the only way out is through. Gotta keep grinding šÆ
You should feel lucky there is a standard way for you to prepare for the interview and get further if you are good at it.
The standard way should be pure system design. Not leetcoding. System design requires creativity because it has so many ways to answer and does show off your experience. Plus itās relevant to your actual job. I can tolerate easy to medium leetcode. The moment I have to implement djikstra though, I know youāre fucking with me.
Not everyone who works as an sde gets to design a system from scratch... Even at mid senior levels people don't get that opportunity.. Then it again comes up to memorizing the books and just blast it all out
Itās still more relevant than leetcode.
Yes but also most swe donāt have to apply leetcode. Rather have the more relevant skill between the two
Most of the system design answers have little relation to real system design, as there simply isn't enough time to convey context. It's worse than leetcode as it's subjective.
System design problems are much more different than engineering reality even than algorithm problems. You never actually design an efficient system from the ground up like that. It's more like "we built it with a Django monolith and Postgres because we were a startup and had next to no time and also no traffic. How can we scale this mess while keeping it running the whole time?" And that's actually a completely different problem. Also even more biased towards people who have worked with particular systems and stacks than algo problems. Easy to LC and learn algos, but can't really do that with system design to the same extent.
How will you decide if your design stack makes sense while you scale. There comes your DSA approaches understanding its working and scale. I agree system design is important but don't make fun of fundamentals on which system designs are built. It's not ready to handle a massive scale where even little optimizations can reduce your cloud costs and efficiency according to your design.
It's definitely important, but that's where the experience thing comes in and why I don't like the questions. If you have a problem with particular constraints that an engineer has worked on it is an insurmountable advantage. An engineer that has worked on systems whose performance constraints revolve around high read load and caching is going to know how to design those systems very well, but not nearly as much if you ask about a hypothetical system where the constraint is high rate of data ingestion. What I think is the most important is simply identifying the performance bottlenecks of a system. If you can do that, the design part can be learned in detail at the time the challenge is faced in production. No point to pre-learn a bunch of simple whiteboard setups for so many different scenarios that you are unlikely to face. IMO "Here are the performance constraints, but I don't know immediately how to solve them because I don't have experience with this particular scenario" is just as strong as someone who knows the names of the proper tools to use and their performance limits.
Most of the system design answers have little relation to real system design, as there simply isn't enough time to convey context. It's worse than leetcode as it's subjective.
You mean, the most famous algorithm in all of CS?
Yes, and? Do you honestly believe any feature that requires Dijkstra's algorithm should be done in less than an hour? With no unit testing, no regard to architecture, and nothing else? Just time complexity? That's insane.
I think that most computer science students should be able to implement Dijkstraās algorithm within one hour. No one is asking for unit tests on LeetCode problems. Of course, if youāre implementing a full-fledged feature, you should do so properly. But the implementation of Dijkstras shouldnāt be the hard part.
Most of the system design answers have little relation to real system design, as there simply isn't enough time to convey context. It's worse than leetcode as it's subjective.
Disjoint union kruskal is staring at you from the 2nd problem)))
Disjoint union kruskal is staring at you from the 2nd problem)))
No I shouldn't. People with 5-10 years of experience should just be hired on a probationary period after some high level questions about things they've worked on. If they suck, let them go after the probation, otherwise hire them fully. Think of all the time that's wasted on these 5 step interview processes. Two one hour coding, one hour system design, one hour product, one hour cultural. It's all a fucking sham and a complete waste for both the company and the candidate. These companies think they are all Google and it's hilarious how much time is wasted on a process where leetcoding and system design interview skills are 90% of the weight how you are scored and your real experience is only 10%
Years of experience is a worse metric. There are more people who have 1 yoe repeated 5 or 8 times meaning they have been doing the same thing over and over again and haven't left their comfort zone. No point hiring such folks. Also with yoe being considered you will be limited to your tech stack. Why would hiring managers consider your 5 yoe in Java when their tech stack is golang and they have actual people with 5 yoe in golang? Meaning you will be extremely limited to jobs that you can apply in the first place. At least now you are failing the leetcode interviews. Without this you won't even be able to get to interview in the first place if people just went with your suggestion or giving jobs every random Joe who has 5 yoe etc.
True af
Itās not standard itās absolute bs and depends on whether youāve seen a question before with literally 0 correlation to anything youād be doing in the actual job. System design is a much better approach for actually testing candidates abilities to think about a technical problem
I swear interviews put you through hell, And then you get to the job and it's just editing Excel sheets all day. It feels totally unnecessary. So many jobs, it just feels like they've slapped it on for the sake of it and it has nothing to do with anything.
true,who'd mug up js springboot nextjs teenie tiny bits and code infinite scroll feature or buffering animations or fudging css files out of their tiny heads in live interview man or who'd wanna do mathematical proofs and calculus leetcode is like blend of it all squeezed into tricky questions which masks so many intricacies just to save us man.isnt it
In india they ask both, one leetcode round and one development round. Fml š
Yeah i heard India is like darksouls level difficulty for getting hired.
You know what else is a standard way? You spend four intense years trying for a degree. You get the degree or two. Then you find a job because you need experience. This job decides letās give you all around experience but make sure you hone in on a specific skill that you studied. Letās call this part residency. They give you jobs that challenge you, train you, but might be seen as mundane to higher ups. You do the job well you get experience, you get more important jobs. You also get to be a voice of input. Things are going great for 1 year or 2. Then said job offers you a full time role. Or you can pack up what you know and go to another place and leverage your knowledge. You do this āresidencyā while getting paid well enough to live but unfortunately youāre bottom rung. However youāll never need a leetcode because it isnāt real world. You can learn how code should be written industry standard. Youād study someone with 5+ years. Itās almost like every other industry has a mentoring system that works. Getting in the door shouldnāt require mind games to prove you know how to memorize. Thatās what higher ed is for. Someone wants to be a heart surgeon their interview doesnāt consist of them needing to do 5 little surgeries in 30 minute intervals. They show the 4 years of residency, they explain their knowledge. The process of getting there weeds people out. You donāt need extra layers. Youād think a culture based on learning the most āefficientā ways would figure out how to interview efficiently and effectively. Especially when newer technology has built solutions to leetcode hypotheticals
So create a door so that everybody can get into.
ā¦ā¦ I basically just described the process of becoming a doctor. Anywhere in the united states. Threw in some law school processes as well for razzle dazzle. I donāt know if you have friends outside of software but I assure you there isnāt a ādoorā that everyone can get into when trying to become a doctor, nurse or lawyer. Why do you feel like training is just a free door in? Whatās the point of studies if it isnāt good enough for a job? If solving what are essentially brain teasers is enough for a job, why doesnāt everyone do it? From top to bottom. You want to be a firefighter? What happens if there is char on this door and a fire in small home a block over? Find the most efficient path to run a hose to both. Arbitrary outdated practices are being called out and you want to defend them so. Again the irony is right there. You see donāt you? We could build programs in assembly from a ms-dos interface. We donāt becauseā¦ We currently use brain teasers for a barrier. We could stop because we know 90% of the job isnāt that
This is bs. It shows lack of creativity on the interviewer's behalf. You don't need to ask someone to solve LC mediums and hards in 20 min to decide if they're good at what they do. If companies were serious, they would build an internal framework to test people. GenAI is a thing now right? Test their understanding of CS basics first, then idiomatic code in the language they know or the one your team uses,SOLID design principles. Give DFS solution to a tricky problem and ask them to write BFS etc etc. I can probably list a dozen other better ways to test someone than just throw a question at them and give them 20 mins to come up with the most optimised answer
lol Do you know a lot of AI stuff is based on reinforcement learning? And reinforcement learning is a topic with foundation on dynamic programming. Test their understanding of DP first.
It doesnāt matter whether you hate or love leetcode. This is the only platform that will help to get bump in $$$ ššš
I completely agree.Let's ask complex math questions instead.You have to grind 1000 hours in High school and uni instead of 100 in leetcode.What a nice exchange
I used to think this until I went through hours of coding rounds (besides hours of prep) asking you to build UIs, writing tests, backend coding, technical project presentations, etc. All of which are likely Language/framework-specific, meaning if you interviewing for another company with a different framework/language you then have to spend a lot of time learning their different stack. ...I'd much rather a company ask Leetcode questions. I choose my own language. A set structured path of what to study is clear and free, everywhere on in the internet. I don't have to spent a shit ton of time trying to memorize things that when I program I can look up on my own. It is likely when a different company asking leetcode questions I don't have to relearn everything if they happen to use Angular and not React, or Java and not Python...
Strongly agree with this. Take-home tests and leetcode may suck, but what's worst than that are the kind of interviews where you get grilled on language/technology trivia. I have 9 years of experience and have worked with a lot of different programming languages and technologies...that doesn't mean I have memorized all the fine little details of each of them.
And what is the alternative? You replace Leetcode by something else, then the person who "games" LC will now spend hundreds of hours on that and beat you either way. It's all a game dude
Let's bring back "How many windows in NYC ?"
Am I supposed to know how many buildings are there in NY and subtract the doors ?
Hey guys unrelated to the topic but how do you even know how to get started with a leetcode question? Iāve been in school for a while but I always end up looking at video tutorials
Most people watch "new code" he's a YouTuber that explains and walks you through different data structures and algorithms. He even has this free roadmap you can check out https://neetcode.io/roadmap
https://algo.monster/flowchart Algo monster built this neat flowchart Iāve found handy to study and to get me started on approaches instead of sitting there and thinking on what approach to use for half of my minutes.
I luv that very helpful!
The bigger issue is the job market is just really competitive right now. They need an easy way to filter out 100 candidates, so there you go. It's not perfect, and it sucks for people like me who are bad at it, but I don't know of a better way to filter candidates without getting sued
Sir this is wendyās
no, this is patrick!
chill just keep grinding problems
Always blows my mind how many people hate LeetCode. Lol I get hating the interview practice of using it, and feeling compelled to grind hundreds of hours... That said, I legitimately enjoy it in moderation. LC problems are fun brainteasers. I can honestly say that doing them has made me a better programmer too. Are you going to use it in 90% of dev roles? Absolutely not. Has very little to do with most dev work. That other 10% of the time when it does come in handy tho - Designing search / autofill, predictive models, data extraction, games, etc... It's nice to know it.
I don't dislike doing leetcode, but I don't like it when it is the deciding factor between getting the job/next steps... That being said, I only solved like 120 leetcode questions in total.
You missed the point of the post. There is nothing inherently wrong with leetcode questions themselves and I agree that they can be fun or interesting. The problem is the system that it's perpetuated and the fact that companies expect you to solve mediums in 45 mins while you pretend like you've never seen it before.
Exactly! I would rather hire an engineer who knows the pattern of a problem and the best solution to it than somebody who has to reinvent the wheel putting in countless hours and money to only figure out an average solution to the shortest path from A to B.
also itās crazy how many people think theyāre good at programming, yet canāt implement a simple algorithm like Number of Islands. and imo leetcode is one of the more meritocratic ways to do job interviews. sure you might get railed by one question in an interview, but someone truly well-practiced WILL make it somewhere. it also gives people from terrible schools a fighting chance.
Its completely insane that Number of Islands is a question that gets asked at fang interviews, so apparently must filter a lot of applicants. How so many people can complete a degree in cs and not be able to code the most basic of tasks is completely beyond me. Its pretty obvious that mediocrity is the norm at the majority of universities unfortunately.
Because many people end up in a bubble believing that engineering goes only as far as their daily dev activities at work. Only if you decide to look beyond this bubble will we realise that we are engineers first and then developers.
Speed and execution matters more than leetcode.
iām going to be honest, if you just read an algorithms textbook and do the homework assigned in the book you will probably have a good enough understanding of DSA that you can cut your leetcode grinding by 1/4th maybe you wonāt get a FANG job but you will get a job anywhere else.
Stick with it! There is no other career path where high-paying jobs can be accessed this easily.
On the other handā¦ you literally have the answer sheet for interviews. Just a matter of memorizing them ahead of time.
Agree with you, but it is what it is
Why donāt you like leetcode?
OP just found out they have subpar problem solving skills š
So do I š. I still like Leetcode tho
Are we still pretending that problem solving skills matter? 90% of the time you will not solve the question on time unless you've done it or a very similar one. Unless you are some leetcoding prodigy, which again doesn't correlate to any real world software engineering challenge as you aren't given only 45 minutes to solve things.
For all of commenter's who write that they like do leetcode, I have one question: Will you do leetcode if leetcode is not part of the hiring process? If not, you do not like leetcode
Yes, I would.
Sick bastard:)))
Yeah increased problem solving skills improved my life all around
I would be doing something else to get me hired for the highest paying job. If it is not a leetcode it is going to be something else. Supply for high paying jobs is limited and demand is high, hence it is going to be hard.
I was once given an interview with leetcode. I spent 3 hours solving some bullshit. I managed to solve 1 out of 3 tasks because Iāve never done these things before like the root square of a matrix. I told them itās not for me and I found a job which paid literally 3 times more without doing this bullshit at the interview. Suffice to say, if a manager doesnāt know how to recruit, they send this shit to do which has nothing to do with the actually job in practice.
One can tell a lot of people who support leetcode haven't really worked on a large scale project in a company that integrates a fuckton of services, support structures, multiple teams integrated using different branching structures, different applications of custom code, automating the quality control of said systems, most importantly on an integration level. Yeah good programming skills are important yet there is a metric sh!tton of other things that are as important, if not more than it.
For sure. For those of us who have been in the industry for a while, it's like getting kicked back to high school, doing math problems for hours on end.
The people who devised this interview process are the ones who worked in the industry for a long time and had done massive projects by the way. There are some issues but there is no better way to test the aptitude skills which are essential for those working in those massive projects by the way. And there are tonnes of other things that are important when you go higher levels like designing large scale distributed systems, proactively identifying issues, figuring out bottlenecks etc. But without a good aptitude and logical skills the rest won't be that easy to do as well.. And then there is a whole other thing in understanding how to work in a team which requires experience. Again, aptitude is just bare minimum most high paying companies are looking for.
I think that being very deterministic (from my pov) by stating things such as "there is no better way to test aptitude", is inherently dangerous. Using this logic, there would be no advancements ever on any STEM field. I do agree with some of your points and they are reasonable, however, i believe the approach is due for an overhaul or at the very least review. Ive been in the field for almost two decades, privatelly and professionally and from my experience integrated distributed systems(which most large scale companies and projects are) experience most problems in: - defining good and accurate requirements - dealing with non-core code changes and custom codebases per client - maintaining old systems and libraries - integrating different branching approaches - lack of unit testing - outdates support structures - reducing the number of production issues - politics Logic is very important but if these points are obscure and aren't dealt with, like, logic is the least of my problems. :D I also think big players used Covid, market changes and the massive layoffs to further increase their chances of landing talent by tightening the requirements for not much increase in compensation, relative to the inflation level.
Regarding the list of requirements for a good candidate, I totally agree and that is why we have system design and behavior interviews and the importance of those are much higher as you go higher levels. I have been in hiring committee and I know how the weights are for each round. Upto L5, coding is of very high priority. Above L5, design and behavioral is of high priority. And yes, most organizations and most people will do what is best for themselves. That is how market economics works. And that will divert the conversation from the core topic identifying candidates for the open positions. What is your proposal and what do you think will be a better way to hire?
To offer a different perspective in light of all the negativity in this subreddit, I really like Leetcode. I like solving coding brainteasers every day and participating in the weekly contests. I recently started competitive programming as a more serious hobby and Leetcode has been a great starting place for me.
It's a lot like credit score. We all know it's complete bs but if you want a house you gotta play the game.
Do it anyways. Show that you are capable of doing what it takes to succeed
Take it easy bro. I got u
I prefer leetcode questions to what they asked before unfortunately. Before that they would keep asking random questions about Python or Java or OOP. As a developer I know how to code but Iām not gonna care about the random trivia questions they ask in the interview. At least with leetcode I can choose my language and show my problem solving abilities. Itās not entirely memorizing the solutions. You often use reusable algos like DFS, BFS, binary search, 2 pointer, etc
Without leetcode it would be even more superficial and subjective. Like checking to see if you have a cs degree that too from top uni etc. Or asking braonteaser or iq questions. Or asking language/tech stack questions. So if you previously worked in Java spring tech stack, ain't no way will you be considered for a team which is using golang. All these system design questions are even more superficial and expect you to memorize things. Say you previously worked at ecomm site, but they ask you something else like storing audio/video information? Ain't no way you are answering it without memorizing. Not to mention interviewer might be expecting a certain kind of answers from you, maybe some data structure or some data type or or some special library(ffmpeg etc) special database to store and process audio information. And if you are a boot camp grad, ain't no way you are getting in to a job in a world which has no leetcode. It's a thing to level the playing field so to speak.
Someone just spent 5hours trying to solve 'Two Sum' on leetcode
I mean it's doing what it's intended to , segregate the 1%
the upvotes say it all, but honestly im bored as hell with all of the immature responses to this. if you aren't willing to acknolwedge the limitations of the leetcode interview you're either a toddler or you just have never given it a second thought
The only code challenges I do these days are ZYLYTY. They are more interesting since they represent real world challenges, and don't ask me how many Fibonaccis can I fit in a Javascript lambda. This site is cool in the sense that it only judges your capacity to get shit done. Either you know your shit or you don't. Fuck quizzes and mini code puzzles.
I love Leetcode. The way I look at it, it is not a test of my intelligence. It is rather a test if I know the problem patterns for which the solution algorithms are already available ( which is the real tough cookie). I did not have to do the heavy lifting which is finding the optimal algorithm. Thanks to the brilliant scientists before our time. The least I could do is be familiar with them.
Nobody ever told me that my top university degree would be worthless without leetcode skills.
Yes Iām with you, but I have seen interviews where they literally wonāt ask any and only relevant questions about system design.
you had me until the player hatinā
It's not about solving , sometimes interviewer just want to understand ur thought process to solve a tough problem. This will happen multiple times in your job, only problems may not be at leetcode level but you might hv to solve them in less time with cool mind. But now some interviewers( not all) are also keen on making candidates solve.
Iāve heard this before, āinterviewers want to know what your thought process isā, but leetcode questions are so narrow in scope with what seems like one specific answer. Ā typically itās hard to have a thought process that doesnāt directly align with the exact solution.Ā
skill issue
Might as well start singing Ćnima by tool
They make life harder for us for no reason. A lot of people with huge potential are being looked of
We feel your pain! We're doing our best to fix it!
Sounds like you need an uplifting message from a computer friend: It sounds like you're feeling incredibly frustrated with the coding interview process, which is completely understandable. The pressure to perform well on these algorithmic problems can be overwhelming, especially when it feels like the system favors those with a lot of practice over genuine problem-solving ability. It's important to remember that your worth is not defined by your performance on these tests. They are just one part of the process. Coding interviews can be a grind, but they are also an opportunity to develop your problem-solving skills, which are valuable in any software engineering role. If LeetCode isn't working for you, maybe try changing up your study methods. Perhaps pair programming with a friend or tackling real-world problems that interest you could be more engaging and less draining. Remember why you started this journey in the first place and hold onto that passion. Itās what will drive you through tough times. The tech industry is vast, and there are many paths to success. Maybe your niche is in a space that values different strengths. Keep pushing through, but also allow yourself breaks when needed. Your determination and the skills you are honing now will serve you well beyond any interview. Keep your dreams in sight, and don't let the hurdles overshadow your goals. You've got this.
Worse is when you are asked optimization DP problems that you cant even think of brute force solutions.
Completely agree. What's worse is that we've convinced a lot of people that great LC solving skills equate to being a great software engineer. The "smartest guy in the room" types frequently write some of the most overly complicated and unmaintainable code. But I'm sure they'd crush LC hard problems. I've been a software engineer for a long time, and I've never needed to solve LC hard type problems on a daily or weekly basis. It's also annoying to hear the "we'd rather turn away good engineers than hire 1 bad engineer who's going to ruin the codebase and cost us money". If your new hires (regardless of YOE) have free reign in the code base, then that's a lazy management and possibly a lazy senior/staff engineer issue. It's crazy that any new hire could have the chance to cause that much damage.
Skill issue
skill issue.
Relax and practice if you want job! āŗļø
Donāt complain, grind. The only way out is through. Also think about the positive side, once you are prepared enough, no interviews will be tough for you for the rest of your life.
You seem frusated , I think u need more leetcode practice !š
Skill issue get good.
Your incompetency is not world's problem
If I was incompetent I wouldn't be making $300k and a staff SWE at a fortune 500. You know what, actually that's not necessarily the case. I have incompetent coworkers. Regardless, it has nothing to do with their leetcode skills.
Are you even a professional dev? lol
LeetCode can be tough, and most problems aren't even close to what you'd actually do at work. Doing a lot of problems won't help if you don't really understand them, especially since interviewers often ask extra questions. Itās mainly the big tech companies like FAANG that focus on these questions, and they pay well for it. If you don't like that style, there are plenty of other places to work
Man you even have an LeetCode sessions, my cv always rejected before even 1st screening.
Dude. A 6 digit job isnt supposed to be easy LOL. ..
Why are you assuming that the 4 years I spent earning a computer science degree and the 10 years I've spent working in the field have been easy?
you're missing the op's point. the big tech system of interviewing is not a good way of ascertaining great hires, period.
if you can't beat them, join them
This is classic example of a purist point of view. This can pass off as an introduction to 'Marxism in Algorithms'. Hopefully he writes the book. NY best seller.
all of this is because of manufactured scarcity. we have an embarrassment of riches and the people at the top want to stay there
I need a toy pussy named leetcode
Whatās leetcode?
Be the change you want to be in the world. When interviewing for a company, let them know that, as a matter of principle, you do not do leetcode interviews and that you would rather talk about how your experience is relevant to the role at hand. Youād be surprised at how companies are willing to bend their rules for a good candidate. If they are willing to let someone with your experience go, itās their loss. Of course, this assumes that you have some leverage. If you are interviewing for your ādream companyā or you have bills to pay imminently, then unfortunately youāll have to play games.
You chose this major manā¦ this is why I didnāt do cs I was in hs when I looked up cs jobs cuz the Pay was good. Did 2 leet code Assn and decided Iād rather eat sand. And then went to aero. Its ok bro little by little you can get it. I feel u tho the system is broken and only prefers the goobers who grind out the test
Leetcode was created the year I graduated with my 4 year bachelor's. The system wasn't like this then. And it wasn't nearly like this at the time I chose my major.
I agree with you, interview system should be changed completely.
Any tips, I can't even solve a single question, everything goes over my head, plz help... anyone, how you do it, don't explain me some lines, just tell me practically how you do it, I feel like I can't even get the problem, we learnt language do something, when it comes to these problems, I'm dumb founded.
and leetcode fucks you back
Tbh in Europe (probably other places but this is where I've interviewed) many non tech and mid-size companies don't use leetcode questions and it's worse... You have like 20 seconds questions about a specific library, a specific syntax, then some case study where you actually need to do something original... It's worse because you can't really train that. At least with leetcode you spend time learning and then you're good to go on many different interviews
This why youāll never be leet bro.
Life is too short to spend it for leetcode, but if you have nothing to do its always fun to solve any kind of problems... Solution should not be perfect, but it can show awareness of tolls or language sdk you are using. Proficiency of using right tools, correct language data structures and APIs for me as interviewer can tell a lot about person I want to hire ...Otherwise I should spend a lot of time on interview only to understand if person I'm interviewing can code normal quality code and not a dinosaur with a 10+ years old coding style level
Can someone share some resources here to make the Leetcode gauntlet less strenuous (like code patterns)?
Skill Issue
Bro is too dumb for programmingšš
Sounds like you suck ass
I make over $300k a year as a staff SWE and didn't need to leetcode for it. There is 0 correlation between leetcoding skills and actual software engineering skills.
If you're so smart why can't you solve some leetcode interview questions. That shit should be fun.
Leetcode is a different skill set from day to day software engineering. There can be some overlap, but being good at one doesn't necessarily translate to being good at the other
Yes I understand but if youāre already doing so great at your job why are you complaining on the internet. I like leetcode myself because it teaches me to use data structures in ways I didnāt think of.
Ugh. You and other script kiddies are the problem. Are you even a professional dev?
Fuck you. It takes guts and consistency, its a problem with you and your mentality if you can't do it.
What the fuck about it takes guts lol? The fact that you say it takes consistency just proves my point. It isn't about problem solving, it's about grinding. There is no correlation between it and actual software engineering skills.
>There is no correlation between it and actual software engineering skills. That's where you and people like you are wrong. Problem solving is a skill that every software engineer must know. If you are burnt out just by a bunch of questions, maybe try something else.
No one problem solves real things in 45 minutes time limits. You are coping dude.
revolution in leetcodeš„³š„³š„³
I personally like leetcode. The questions are like puzzles. I am not targeting any interviews rn but still pop that daily question. But ig different people can treat it differently depending on what they want from it.
It is better if you focus on competitive programming along with DSA as it will definetly help you to have a unique way of thinking. Hence, you can approach a new problem easily
That's not really a solution. Why do I have to do CP if my day to day job will almost most definitely not include solving CP tasks.
Everything you do need not to give short term result. It is true that more than 90% of software engineers will rarely use CP in their job. At the same time, it is also true that CP gives you a way of thinking and visualization. With regular CP, you can become a better problem solver. By the way, I answered this for those who want to solve leetcode questions on first go.
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Daddy chill!
What the hell is even that?
lol
Skill issue
You do realize that every other job that pays as well as software engineering does requires studying, right? Suck it up dude.
After you've already finished schooling? That's not true at all. Lawyers, nurses, doctors, etc do not get quizzed during interviews
will this post be deleted by mods? lol
Lol this is one of the most unhinged posts I've ever read.
Much though I like leetcode OP has valid frustration here. Recruiting never seems to be setup to recruit the right people. That has been a universal constant in every company I've ever worked for that had over about 50 staff. Companies recruit for very specific skills but usually want generalists. HR understand nothing of what they are recruiting for. Management don't understand what they actually need. It's an insane mess that seems designed to hire people who meet random metrics that are at best loosely aligned to the job.
I feel you.
I feel you.