I am slowly ramping up to prepare for interviews. Last time I interviewed that was 2 years ago and I was great at LCs. Now that I am bit rusty, I started some practice rounds with mediocre startups/companies. Some already said they can't match big tech compensation (more like 60/70%). Anyways it didn't matter. During the coding round of two such companies, they asked very difficult LC mediums and hards. I came up with some working inefficient code or the right algorithm but couldn't code on time so got rejected. Yeah, perhaps I am not ready but why mediocre companies focus filtering on leetcode? If someone is already a leetcode expert, can't they simply get into top tech companies with higher compensation much easily. I think they are missing out on great talent by focusing on leetcode memorization. Perhaps they can come up with a different criterion to identify good potential candidates? Any thoughts? TC 290k
look at who’s in charge in eng. most likely some ex-fang who borrowed all the bad practices instead of coming up with new ones
The hardest lc questions are from start ups
Right. The big companies (Apple Facebook Microsoft) I interviewed with so far asked much simpler coding problem. Felt like startups guys were getting sadistic pleasure by asking a difficult question and then self amused how I managed to be in industry. I would be surprised if anyone comes up with a solution in 45 mins without ever seeing the problem.
Yes. I was asked an np hard problem from some hotshot data analytics start up last year. Started only going after faang after thst
Only if they match it with TC
No TC match. 60% of FAANG.. Not a rising star or unicorn.
At what stage do they reveal that they can’t match the TC?
usually pretty early on with the “significant equity” bs if you tell them you interview with fang too. then they sell you on the autonomy, impact, and whatever brilliant assholes they hired lol
They told me the first thing before I even started interviewing. I didn't ask.
Early in the startup lifecycle, every hire is literally make or break. With Faang, they are just wasting bunch of people’s time and some money if they make a bad hire. Why is equity bs? You join startup for equity. If it takes off, you make more or it could end up worthless. Worked in one of the faangs in the long time back. Trust me, kids. Time to join them have are long gone. I joined late.
Maybe those companies once had easy interviews but got burned by hiring mediocre/bad developers, so they made the interview loop more difficult to weed those people out. Just my 2 cents.
But is leetcode expertise accurate metric of developer assessment? I just don't understand industry obsession with leetcode
No, it’s not. But I think companies don’t have a better way of measuring a developer’s skill in an interview outside of asking leetcode problems.