Three years ago when I was job hunting I only spent a week brushing up on CS fundamentals, and had no problem getting offers. I passed most onsites I tried for. In many of these onsites I I would fail to get optimal solutions, or I would run out of time. But I would still get an offer at the end of it. This time though as I’m interviewing, three years later, even though I’ve spent the last two months really prepping hard on Leetcode, I’m struggling. I’ve just failed my 6th onsite in a row. I’m sad about it, but mostly just confused at this point. I have even failed a couple places that gave me an offer last time around. Even though I’m performing much better than I did 3 years ago, I can’t get an offer no matter what I do. General feedback from the recruiters is always is the same. My technical skills weren’t up to the bar. I need to work on my coding. Etc. The strange thing is I personally feel I am performing way better in interviews now than I did 3 years ago. In most cases I’m arriving at optimal solutions to the problems with time to spare. Yet I still struggle to pass these onsite interviews. Has interviewing really become this competitive in the last three years? Or am I being judged that much stricter now that I claim 3 more years of experience than I did last time? I am seriously confused.
Yes I noticed same thing. Job market is hot but it's also way more competitive than it used to be 3-5 years ago. Developers are no better now than they used to be but everyone spends so much time grinding leetcode now, interviewing completely diverged from what developers do on the job. It's a silly zero-sum game.
younger millennials , they ask all useless mugged up questions and think they are the smartest person in the whole organization
Yes this. I have failed interviews because a millennial was focussed on the solution he thought was the right one
Can't tell. May be it's just unlucky. Or 6 onsite might be considence of bad phone screenings, so everyone invited you, whereas in my experience at least half would reject. Here is my stats from recent year search. Two months search, hundreds HRs calls, 40 phone screens, 10 onsites, 6 offers.
Before an interview with 1 medium question for 45 min was reasonable now it’s fucking 2
Yes agree. With yoe expectations are different. They want you to rock every interview without hints. It's just getting worse day after day.
Agree. Interviewing is getting competitive, and you gotta keep running the race. Career is a fuckin marathon now. You stop, you lose.
Are you sure it’s more competitive? Maybe it’s that you look older than you did 3 years ago. Ageism is real.
It's just 3 years. Come on.
Well 24 to 27 won’t be noticeable, but 38 to 41 might be depending on genetics.
True. 😅😅 On the bright side, you at least know where you should improve. There are people who ace the technical part and still don't get offered the role. Good luck on your future interviews!!
Keep in mind that most companies have expectations for your growth curve. In other words you might be only matched to senior level+ roles with your YoE now which are harder to get.
Or maybe this time you are interviewing for a higher role than 3 years ago, or both
I think OP was just asking about algorithmic part.