I just got interviewed at Lyft for their Self Driving Team. It was an initial coding challenge. We had gone over first 35 minutes over my background and projects. And the last 25 minutes the interviewer gave a coding challenge to solve. I couldn’t finish within 25 minutes. Wrote 75% of the code. However, right after the interview, I spent time, cleaned the code, added error checking, tested and made it super robust and checked into my Github. I sent the Github link and the code to the interviewer. Next day I got the mail that I was rejected. I was really frustrated. Looks like I was only measured on a coding problem based on my ability to code within the given time. All my 14 years of experience, skills, passion and patents are thrown into trash. I strongly believe only candidates who practiced for interview for weeks or recently coded the same challenge can crack within the 30 minutes. In reality, it definitely takes more than 30 minutes for someone to think and consider all error checking functionality to implement and test with high quality. I would agree speed is important but when we build safety critical systems where peoples lives matter, I would vote for quality over speed, and its OK to take little longer time. I would be skeptical about trying Lyft self driving cars if they rush to beat competition and don’t have appreciation for quality, safety and security. So, good luck to Lyft team in building self-driving cars. Do you disagree with my thoughts? Don't you think these interviews are highly subjective?
Sadly It is how interview works these days in America. You can get pass only if you leetcode and had good memory. It sucks
Don’t like it either but feel like there’s not better way atm to go through so many candidates
Why are we living in a world like this? If there really is a ‘talent shortage’ or this kind of BS shouldn’t be happening? Sometimes I wonder if ‘tech’ is way overrated in terms of the number and quality of opportunity claimed. Something just doesn’t feel right.
The current process, while not good for software engineers, is good for software companies. The reason is that it has a lower rate of hiring a false positive if done correctly. The disadvantage is that it errs on the side of false negatives. Hiring bad people is more harmful than not being able to fill headcount.
Is it really true, though? Isn’t firing really easy and done frequently as well?
It’s an unfortunate way of interviewing candidates.
You’re not the first person to be frustrated by the interviewing process. Experience/skills help determine leveling and position. Your ability to answer a coding question determines whether you meet the bar for a hire. So experience isn’t nothing. It’s just that coding/algorithms ability is also important. If weeks of prep can help you pass the coding/algorithms part, then why not do the prep? The opportunity cost is very low, all things considered.
Yeah it sucks. We've all been there. Try not to get too down about it. Interviewers try to be objective so they put these timed coding challenges. But it's the people who had time to optimize their skills to do leetcode rather than actual problems that do well. Unfortunately that's everybody's interview process nowadays
I understand your frustration. But if the interviewer took the code you checked in at Github into consideration, would that be fair? What about other candidates that weren't told that was an option? To remain fair, all candidates must be interviewed and evaluated with the same constraints. Do you agree? If not, where do you draw the line? Solutions turned in within a day? A week? A year? What makes either of these options fairer than the others? There are other rounds of the interview process that measure the arguably more important things such as experience (through design), passion (through the behavioral interview round), etc. It's not a perfect process but it's fairer than the alternative you're proposing, IMO.
IMO, if you have more than 10yrs of experience, you should move into management and interview through that route.
Lol
Lol they don't care. I bet they didn't click the link. Their reasoning is someone sid it accurately and quicker. Interview process is broken and has little correlation with how you'll do at your job
You have to resign yourself to the fact that coding interviews are a separate game. The name of the game is pressure and time. It has very little to do with being a good SWE, which is more about depth and robustness. It's honestly so retarded. Having the stroke of luck of having seen a question before gives you the speed edge and can literally mean tens of thousands of $ salary wise.
It really does get better once you accept this. I've gotten some phenomenal offers just by accepting this fact, and doing due diligence practicing for a few weeks before onsites. I agree, it is so dumb.
The last line just summarizes it