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Comment by noleetcode | Hacker News Reader

Not at Microsoft, but have been at a company for a very long time being underpaid. I haven't left simply due to one issue: I refuse to do leetcode interviews. I've dipped my toes into the waters every once in a while and even the companies that swear to me up and down before interviews that they don't do leetcode, well, guess what I discover during the interview loop...

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> I haven't left simply due to one issue: I refuse to do leetcode interviews.

If it helps any to know this, I get compensated at least as well as Microsoft (or equivalent) companies provide and have never had to do a single leetcode interview. I've never even been asked.

As near as I can tell, leetcode is used by a certain subset of the industry. But the industry as a whole is much larger than those companies.

Is there a particular subset of the industry you specialize in? Curious where the leetcode-lite/free areas might be (unfortunately I'm not in one of them).

>> I refuse to do leetcode interviews

I don't know what the bounds of leetcode are but can you translate that into something that would make sense in other domains?

Like if you wanted to hire a musician, you might want to hear them play first. Is that completely unreasonable?

On the other hand you don't judge a doctor on his ability to dissect a surprise frog.

(A plumber might be a closer comparison).

Hmm. It’s more like you want to hear the musician play first, but you don’t ask him to play something he is comfortable with to learn how skilled he is, nor do you ask him to play a known challenging piece of work. Instead you just start pulling out short “gotcha” songs with obscure key shifts and speed changes to test them. Like, sure a great musician will be able to handle it if they are a great musician, but it’s just annoying for the musician and there should be better ways to determine if they meet your expectations.

The example I always give people is imagine that you're a civil engineer and you walk into the interview and they have a bunch of Popsicle sticks, sticky tack, and a bowling ball.

They inform you that your interview is to build a bridge with the sticks and tack that can support the bowling ball rolling across it.

(Yes, I know the age-old argument that 'real' Engineers are accredited and all that, but I still think the example shows how ridiculous it all is)

"Sightreading", i.e. playing a piece you've never seen before on the spot, is something that musicians are commonly asked to do in auditions.

Of course, but this is like if the whole interview were they have you sight read 10 bars of music, and then 8 bars of a different genre, then 18 bars of another harder one. Then they just spam those at you for the duration of the audition. That is the whole thing. Like, yes. It is “a” way to do it, but it is understandable that there would be musicians who aren’t fond of that interview style.

Yes, leetcode is nothing like what you do for a job as a coder.

> Like if you wanted to hire a musician, you might want to hear them play first. Is that completely unreasonable?

That's absolutely reasonable. But Leetcode isn't at all equivalent to that. Looking at examples of your work is.

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