If you do not have code, then first create a small project. That can be done in a week or two. This requires less time than grinding leetcode.
Some people will say: but you need to be able to solve a problem in under a few minutes. That is utter bullshit. We all know that development doesn't work that way in reality.
Lots of bullshitters out there will find some code they don't own, study it and become well-versed in how it works, and fake their way through.
>If you do not have code, then first create a small project. That can be done in a week or two. This requires less time than grinding leetcode.
Do you mean one of those "interview projects"? Lots of people, especially on HN, would balk at this as "blah blah don't do free work". Those same people will then go back to your first point and say "just evaluate people on their experience.
Back in the day, it was normal to get your former boss to sign off on showing a piece of code in your next round of interviews.
This filters out the best
And if you created a huge incentive to fabricate personal projects, a cottage industry of people who will create something cool on your GitHub in a way that looks authentic would spring up, and you'd be prioritizing people with the wealth and inclination to cheat over other candidates.
all the arguments you give are the same for leetcode prep. the difference is that if it is your own code that you walk through you need to prep a lot less. and that is good because in your situation you would not be able to grind hundreds of irrelevant problems in your spare time for each interview.
as far as your cottage industry argument… you can tell if someone did not write his own code and the system is being gamed right now anyway by people taking interviews for others and so on. and this thread shows people are medicating which is the worst.
Other people's lives differ from yours in ways that are difficult to imagine. Plenty of people have a career in programming without ever going to college. Just because one can't imagine it doesn't make it invalid, or even that it is one's business. If it isn't about their job performance, don't measure it.
> all the arguments you give are the same for leetcode prep.
An interesting point, but of course I wasn't defending leetcode interviews, I was responding to your assertion that people who have the requisite skills necessarily have free time, and the subtext that any time not spent working was available for more working.