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Comment by brhsagain | Hacker News Reader

I know leetcode hate is a popular theme on this website but frankly I think it’s overblown. You can basically solve any leetcode easy or medium if you understand like ten basic concepts (that you should know anyway) and then spend maybe a week reading solutions for the more trick questions. Leetcode hards require more memorization, but honestly, if we’re going to talk about pointless studying take a look sometime at what med school and law school students have to do.

In perspective, is 3-4 months of studying to get a job really that big of a problem? I spent longer than that studying for the SATs.

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I think the hate isn't for the 3-4 months of studying to get your first job, it's the sense that you'll need at least 1-2 months of studying to get every subsequent job (since you won't be touching leetcode-like problems in the course of your actual job). That's not a big deal when you're young, single, and childless, but it's overwhelming if you don't have a lot of free time.

> (since you won't be touching leetcode-like problems in the course of your actual job)

That is not universally true.

2 months of studying every 2 years for job switch is 8.3% overhead. Do leetcode jobs pay 8.3% more after-tax than non-leetcode jobs?

Probably more like 100% more tbh.

Yup, 200k -> 400k, sounds about right

So I guess try to get your first LC job before your personal life gets demanding, then hold on to that job for dear life so you don’t have to grind LC again?

This is a decent strategy, I approve.

Is this the norm in the US/SV?

Very skeptical of someone who switches every 2 years... you also become only really efficient after 6 - 18 months.. not only the code / legacy / wider system your stuff integrates with, but also socially knowing all the right people, context of all the bigger processes, a good chunk of domain knowledge ingrained??

It’s quite common among the Silicon Valley scene during the tech boom. People bouncing between startups or even between FAANG level opportunities. Switching companies annually even (though not for many successive years).

Sometimes it’s not the worst strategy as the hidden truths of a startup reveal themselves over the course of a year or two.

It's surprisingly common, and a great way to filter out candidates if they have a history of job hoping.

People under 35 change on average every 20 months in the US. People who are focused on salary and career achievement. There are a lot of people who get a job and blank out on cruise control and wake up 10-15 years later and wonder why everyone else is making more than them. But the talented people are usually switching every 2-3 years. It's not uncommon for someone to spend an extra year at a company to have a child, plan a marriage.

Uh, generally yeah.

Your math is wrong. People aren't literally doing LC for 2 months straight without eating or sleeping. If we assume it means you study for 2 hours a day that's only an overhead of 0.7%. I still think that's an overestimation of the time you would actually need.

> it's the sense that you'll need at least 1-2 months of studying to get every subsequent job

I think it doesn't have to be this way if you focus on the fundamentals when you prepare, as it's easier to refresh a reasoning that clicked the first time than a complex algorithm you understood only superficially. And these fundamentals are enough for leetcode problems of medium difficulty.

YMMV. I studied zero hours for the SAT and did well. There are honestly no hard questions, just a lot of them in a short time.

I have studied at least a hundred hours for leetcode and I still have never passed an interview at a well paying company. Leetcode hards are legit hard.

I'd love leetcode-type tests if you only had to do it once. Or even with a smaller every-five-years refresher to retain certification or whatever. And then not worry about it at all during interviews.

Yeah people in India/China spend 2-3 years grinding complex maths/physics puzzles just to get into a college and Americans can't put in a few hundred hours of hardwork to get a high paying job. It's probably lack of rigour in American schooling system that's behind this entitled mindset.

If the grinding is not going to translate into a business advantage, then it is pointless.

A lot of those people in India and China commit suicide, have mental breakdowns, or end up living generally unsatisfying lives. Their system is entirely unenviable.

OP here.

I’m in India. People spend 2-3 years grinding leetcode questions too. So you can imagine how difficult the tests have become over the past few years and how pointless this whole test is.

There's a difference between 'entitlement' and recognizing that a system is flawed such that it doesn't necessarily select for the best candidates, only those who are willing to play the game hardest, which doesn't necessarily correlate with the best on the job performance.

The zero sum burnout games many Chinese and Indian students play are also a good example of such a system, and I think it's a positive feature of American culture that it's objected to.

You are right. The problem is not solving the question, but solving it in 15 minutes with the optimal algo/data structure. Practicing can easily get you there. Also. In the grand scheme of things it's nothing compared to the job/comp bump.

SATs are also a very bad way of evaluating anything meaningful

They're useful as a second piece of evidence if, like me, you did poorly at classwork because of undiagnosed ADHD.

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