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Comment by andrew_ | Hacker News Reader

I just do not understand why somebody with 20 years of experience would invest that kind of time in leetcode. just say "no" and be done with the BS, and with the kind of financial success the author has enjoyed previously, wait for the right company to come along that doesn't require it. That's the only way the industry is going to fix itself; enough people start saying no.

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Several years ago, I've seen an opening where a company was looking for someone to "lead their engineering effort". When I applied, they asked me to pass a hackerrank test. I said, thanks, but no thanks. It's obvious that such mismatch of the role description and the methods of finding the right candidate can only mean they are either incompetent or lying. None of that says anything good about that company.

What do you think is a good prescreening test for candidates?

Personally I don't think it's a very high signal when hiring, mostly useful asking one in a phone screen to see if the person is faking having any programming experience and then leaning more heavily on systems design and behavioral questions.

But, I also don't feel like it's some huge indignity? I have spent far longer on take home tests from companies than practicing leetcode most interview circuits. I wouldn't discount a company for asking these kinds of questions to try to get more signal from applicants.

Some people are very good at BSing their way through interviews, even technical ones. Those people also end up being very difficult to fire and are generally poisonous to culture. Asking them to code is a great filter, it’s hard to fool a compiler. It shouldn’t be the only filter, but for coding roles a coding interview is pretty critical.

Asking them to code is indeed a great filter. But is Dynamic Programming question necessary to perform the filter?

Facebook and other companies banned Dynamic Programming.

What?

Is this a recent thing? I still got them two years ago.

No idea. That's what I heard from a eng manager at FAANG 2 months ago. He said "We don't ask DP questions, they don't resemble problems that you are expected to do while working. You can still some of the problems using DP, but we don't ask pure DP problems."

Yes, we don't ask DP questions. (I work at FB)

How are people in the US difficult to fire?

Because attorneys know how deep the employer's pockets are, which gives them a great incentive to pull out all the stops, which gives corp HR the incentive to make sure there is a long and painful performance management process before anyone can be fired without it exposing the company to too much risk.

This doesn't apply to right-to-work states. Nuance is required in an argument like this. For nealy half the country, "hard to fire" is bullshit FUD. It's another excuse to be lazy in interviewing and follow FAANG in lock step.

"right-to-work" means you can't be forced to join a union. It has nothing to do with this.

Having lived and worked in a right to work state all my life, your comment does not ring true for my experience. Employees can be members of a "protected class" (one of which is simply being over age 40) which is often the core of an improper firing civil suit.

In other words, firing people in the US just costs money. Not very much, usually.

I am casually doing some leetcode in prep for a job search a few months down the line. I've never had to do these problems before, nor do I have a formal CS education (am a senior dev). While many of the hard problems are quite esoteric, IMO being able to easily power through most of the easy/mediums is 100% a sign of developer competency. Even if you don't remember the exact algorithm, being able to build it from the ground up quickly and accurately through reasonining seems like a pretty solid signifier of a quality developer to me.

This seems like a very American problem, possibly a Silicon Valley specific one. Not once in my many years in this industry in multiple western countries have I heard of someone being subjigated to such a test. I had to google it to understand the article.

For me, it's either imposter's syndrome or I just suck. Regardless, I'm worried I won't be able to find a job.

It’s the same for me. I’d like to have that kind of confidence, but the bottom line is that I’m extremely replaceable.

I don't like these questions either. But, I've come to accept that it's worth your time if the companies you're interested in ask the questions. Especially so if they have a big compensation package.

But why? Sure it’s boring, I certainly don’t enjoy doing Leetcode, but if the job requires it I’m not above practicing. It’s not like I’ll have to do it once I get hired.

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