Why so much hate on LC interviews?
I see so much hate on LC-type interviews, mostly on Reddit, Medium, etc. but I don’t really understand why. If you’re a good swe then shouldn’t you be able to solve some DSA questions? I mean like the types of data structures and algorithms asked on interviews aren’t really something absurd. Mostly just some basic ones and it only takes a couple of months at most to get used to then. Wanna here what other folks think about this. #engineering #software #google #meta #amazon #netflix #apple #faang #leetcode #interview
I personally think LCs are a good way to level people with different technical backgrounds. That said, I hate being asked hard questions which you won’t be able to solve optimally unless you have seen it before. It defeats the purpose of the interview, given there is a clear advantage to someone who has solved the problem before
My problem with leetcode is that some of the problems are things you either have or haven't seen before, especially for the optimal solution. Those problems aren't an aptitude test, it's a memorization test.
some ppl can’t do LC for shit which is why the hate it
This is maybe partially true. I think there are a lot of senior engineers who are really good and impactful who just don't have the time to put into grinding LC. I also legitimately think there are a lot of us who thinks it's just stupid... and it is.
Always boomerangs back to the same question: what’s a better, cheaper way to assess engineers at scale?
I'll tell you why LC is bad. It's like an entrance examination. It makes no sense because interviews are not examination. Everyone compete at different times and assessed by different people and are judged on different questions. At least for any entrance/qualification examination, you are judged equally. LC just has way too many biases to give everyone fair and equal chances.
Is there a way to completely eliminate a bias tho? Sure you might have a bad luck when your interviewer’s not actively engaged in live coding but rather copy and paste some absurd question and act like a robot w/o much communication but it could happen with other types of interviews too. I don’t really think it’s to do with LC tbh. Also, what are better ways to guarantee fair and equal chances then? Like you said, everyone comes from a different background and certainly you can’t ask ppl some niche questions that have nothing to do with their aptitude.
Sure you cannot create a completely fair environment. At least you can choose not to ask LC which is different for everyone and of various difficulty levels (these 2 facts are not the main problem), but solutions exist on web and can be practiced like a bull (not saying everyone does it, but can be done and this is the main problem and one that makes the playing ground even more unfair when coupled with previous 2 facts). Ok now coming to how you can judge? Ok. How about asking them to write class structures for projects you completed? Sure, they are different with different difficulty levels for different people. But the advantange is your judgement is much more interactive and not based on some damned test cases. You get the candidate to engage in conversations more and can see through their depth and imagination clearly. You stay attentive because you would be curious to find other solutions. Basically you can twist and stretch the discussion to any direction possible and to any depth you can imagine.
Beyond medium level, lc in interviews tests whether one has prepared for lc and not whether they are an engineer who will do impactful work. Interviewers are expected to get as many signals from interviews, and the lazy ones just copy paste lc hards to fill reqs.
LC doesn't prove anything in terms of your ability to be an SWE. It's like cheating on a test - you might get a passing mark, but if you can't do it in real life, you are simply a cheater. - or in the case of an employee - a fraud.
I would appreciate some sort of reasoning behind your words - “LC doesn’t prove anything in terms of your ability to be an SWE.” All you mention is just “cheating on a test” and nothing else. How is it equivalent to cheating and how is it not related to one’s ability as a SWE?
Because answering an LC question doesn't mean you really know the material. Lots of people grind LC and never really learned the material so in essence its like doing a book report without reading the book.
Because it says nothing about the candidate's ability to do the actual job. All it says that a given person knows what conventional algorithm to use with a theoretical riddle using chosen language. It tells you nothing about their ability to solve anything outside of this limited scope. It won't tell you if the person has enough knowledge to take any sort of ownership, will be able to consistently write quality code for your product, will be able to figure out how to implement something in a non-conventional way, knows well the tech stack that you are planning to use or will be able to easily learn it, will be able to maintain legacy code and so on. It won't even tell you if the person really knows the language they just used or the algorithms and data structures that they just implemented well enough, because for all you know they could have just memorized the solution for this particular problem in this particular language yesterday without understanding any of it. It makes sense to use at Unis to check if your students learned their homework I guess, but using it to filter candidates, especially the ones who are already somewhat experienced is dumb and a massive waste of everyone's time.
Leetcode style interviews are bad because they are not actually testing your ability to do your job. It's totally irrelevant to the skillet necessary. When is the last time you actually had to write that kind of an algorithm at your job? Without just looking up an example of Stack Overflow? To make it worse, Leetcode itself has exacerbated the problem. Because LC has made it so much easier to practice these problems, people are just memorizing them. Which means, to stay ahead of the curve, problems have gotten harder and more ridiculous. This style of interviewing used to be about testing your knowledge of basic data structures, not memorizing 7 common backtracking or dp class problems. As a hiring manager I've seen people blaze through their LC interview only to be a useless employee, and vice versa. So it's not even a useful signal. But hey it's like hazing in a fraternity. Everyone in FAANG went through it to galdurnit they'll make sure you do too, right???
Its not reasonable, I agree. That's why I said it.
No, hiring is centralized at Facebook.
Because LC interviews favor those who had time to practice and grind them, people with families have to struggle significantly more than bachelors and nerds with no social or family obligations .
Some people think they'd have a better chance if the system wasn't rigged against them. But tbh if you can't solve LC you shouldn't be at FAANG
+1 Everyone can leetcode these days, need to get ICPC/IOI/Codejam/codeforces style interviews, leetcode is too easy now
Nah, I ask ones that are significantly harder than LC hards to raise the bar and to hire and develop the best of the best of the best