My friend TC: 214K + options 3YOE My TC: 157K + bonus 3YOE My friend is a leetcode god. He aces (and actually enjoys) coding tests like Hackerrank, tech screens, and general leet code interviews. He practically flies through the process to the onsite- where he has gotten 4 rejections so far. The only thing we can think of is the social- but how does he overcome that?! Any help and tips needed.
Social code bruh.
Great but like he is very good socially and a truly involved person who cares about community but has social anxiety that can make him monotone in interviews. How to overcome that??
True onsite interviews tests you how sociable you're. You can't be cold and have a happy working team. I would call him and take the onsite as if they were just another day with his team. Stop stressing out.
Go for the next one and make it 4/5
Awwww fingers crossed man. He has a bunch more lined up in the future but he is worried something is really wrong and won’t be able to ace them.
I wouldn't recommend anything else. Also, if this is in the Bay Area, most of the techies are socially awkward and probably that's not the reason for the rejection.
Maybe he can open leetcode cram school instead?
Did your friend ask for feedback? I’ve also felt like I’ve aced interviews and then had rejections, which left me baffled. Sometimes, they come back with valuable feedback. There’s an unimaginable number of things that can go wrong, though: interviewer didn’t like an approach, felt uncomfortable, jealous, racist, agist...I’ve heard it all.
He did and we will see if he gets it back.
Almost always it's due to not asking clarifying questions. That's the major difference between leetcode and real life questions. Many interview questions are setup with ambiguity to see if the candidate is thinking about acceptance criteria and edge cases. We don't want code machines, we want thinkers.
There aren’t any that do in-person interviews, right? He passes remote hiring manager interviews and tech screens with no issue.
I mean to say that he’s like easily passed all the video ones so far so those don’t seem to be the problem.
Leetcode is just one part of the equation, behavioral, system design, knowledge, experience and skills are the other parts
He might not be explaining his solution correctly. Silently coding up the solution on the whiteboard is correct but not enough to pass the interview.
He says that he talks throughout and that they understand and accept his solution. He does have a monotone way of talking until he’s comfortable with people...
There might be some red flag he’s consistently tripping. Like diving into code or not hand testing.