How to become less easily replaceable and escape LC

Aug 12, 2020 24 Comments

As interview prep resources continue to improve and more and more people enter the CS field each year, the top companies can continue selecting harder LC questions for interviews.

Meanwhile we get paid well on the job, but we know that tons of people can take our place.

Is there any way to escape LeetCode-style interviews at top companies? Even CS PhD grads with published NeurIPS papers and Google Brain experience have to do them and their actual experience only becomes relevant in the team matching phase.

It seems that regardless of educational background, everyone including academic CS superstars is similarly replaceable and LC interview performance is all that matters.

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TOP 24 Comments
  • Amazon
    x509

    Go to company page Amazon

    x509
    Accept that everyone everywhere is replaceable and just focus on being happy with your friends and family
    Aug 12, 2020 1
    • Intuit
      coolwhatev

      Go to company page Intuit

      coolwhatev
      +1 ^
      Everyone is replaceable: if we think we're expert and no one can do a better job than us.
      There will always be someone who will do the job better/differently.
      Aug 22, 2020
  • SAP / IT
    IKRJ67

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    IKRJ67
    Better think the other way around: how to become financially independent and make your job very replaceable from your own POV.
    Aug 12, 2020 0
  • Google / Eng
    nuglar

    Go to company page Google Eng

    nuglar
    Ok, so somehow now you are irreplaceable. Then what?
    Aug 12, 2020 3
  • Wayfair
    pPVs72

    Go to company page Wayfair

    pPVs72
    be an expert in a field top companies are trying to break into. for example, apple is trying to get into healthcare wearables. it's almost certain they hired some doctors and heart science people to help with the EKG features. I'm assuming, but I don't think they did LC for the job
    Aug 12, 2020 3
  • Dell
    /_

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    /_
    The only way to be less replaceable is to stay at one place for a long time imho. Subject matter experts in very specific domains are much harder to replace
    Aug 12, 2020 1
    • SAP / IT
      IKRJ67

      Go to company page SAP IT

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      IKRJ67
      But also very fragile since the demand for such skills tend to be very weak outside of the organization.
      Aug 12, 2020