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Comment by satvikpendem | Hacker News Reader

Leetcode is not for engineering on the job though, it's purely a test for getting hired. You wouldn't expect lawyers to take an LSAT while on the job.

A lot of people, especially those who don't do Leetcode or work in a company that asks such questions, think Leetcode should somehow relate to the work and are annoyed, but it's just a test like any other.

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To reword it, leetcode is a barrier to entry for newcomers. It's pure gatekeeping and it says as much when people think they have to 'grind' it to have any prospect of a job.

It teaches you absolutely nothing about the rest of the job, around comms and leadership, which most of the time are more important than your ability to solve puzzles.

It selects for people who want to get in and want to grind.

I think I disagree with this. I taught myself web dev mainly through Udemy courses and managed to land my first dev job through that. I've been working my way through Algomonster and Neetcode and, as someone with no formal education in computer science or programming, it's been filling in some gaps in my knowledge and I've mostly been enjoying the process. Some things I saw in the code base at my last job that I didn't comprehend fully at the time now make a lot more sense.

On the contrary, Leetcode is one of the most egalitarian ways there is for hiring applicants, because if you can pass the test, you're basically hired, at least at FAANG and adjacent. I'd hate to have employers show implicit bias through such saccharine distinctions as "personal fit."

I think you and the other person who replied to me were dismissing the value of soft skills and the other things you need to know as a software engineer that are adjacent to writing code.

To put it another way - do you have an opportunity in leetcode to say the value of solving a challenge isn’t worth the time invested?

Leetcode is the initial layer. Once you show that you can code (because many can bullshit their way through a non-technical interview, I've seen that first hand at other companies where the employee couldn't code themselves out of a wet paper bag), then you go to the later rounds to show your soft skills.

Who will be hired if three candidates can pass the leetcode test?

yeah, and the test is not relevant, so it should no longer be used, and instead people should be hired on past projects and skills, perhaps on a 2 week trial.

Sure, you can want that but if you want to win, you have to play the game that's there, not what you'd personally want. Of course, you can reject that game for a different one but then you lose out on its benefits, such as massively higher pay.

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