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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

Seeing that in over 20 years and very successful track record of getting jobs quickly that I’ve never done leetCode or had an algorithm interview - how did you get that out of anything that I said?

I’ve met “junior developers” who couldn’t translate simple business requirements into code.

The stereotypical “developer” who couldn’t do FizzBuzz.

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The technical interviews I've had are decidedly not fizzbuzz level problems. They're "implement new features in an unfamiliar codebase in 10 minutes while we watch closely and tell you that every line of code you start to write is the wrong approach."-problems.

”Seeing that in over 20 years and very successful track record of getting jobs quickly that I’ve never done leetCode or had an algorithm interview - how did you get that out of anything that I said?”

Well, first...you were replying directly to a post that was talking about whitebord/algorithm questions and how they’re out of control. On an article about same. So my answer is: ”because I bothered to read the post to which you were replying.”

Regardless, if you haven’t done an algorithm interview in “over 20 years”, you either haven’t changed jobs, or you’ve had a unicorn career. Either way, you’re clearly not representative of the vast majority of devs. True or exaggerated, your experience is so exceptional that it isn’t worth discussing.

I’ve changed jobs frequently and haven’t had a unicorn career. You’d be amazed that the interview process for your bog standard enterprise developer/architect roles or your standard software as a service CRUD developers don’t have algorithm style interviews. It’s mostly soft skill and explaining your previous projects.

Not everyone’s career has been the r/cscareerquestions “learn leetCode and work for a FAANG”.

Yeah, you’re exaggerating. I work in the same industry you do, for longer than you have.

These tests are ubiquitous. If you honestly haven’t hit them, you’re a unicorn.

I’ll be even for specific. I’ve worked in Atlanta for over 20 years. Changed jobs 7 times (stayed at one job 6 years longer than I should have), dozens of interviews, maybe two outright rejections, over the last 10 years, 5 jobs, I had two coding interviews. One was a simple hands on coding interview where I had to make unit tests pass (something like a bowling score simulator) and the other a merge sort on the board (got offers for both).

I’ve asked around about my coworkers experience over the years because I had never heard of algorithms style interviews until three years ago when I started reading HN and r/cscareerquestions.

I thought all interviews were soft skill, language trivia, diagramming models and architecture, and explaining past projects.

I don't think that's a phenomenon exclusive to 'junior developers'

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