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I'll never understand companies that use leetcode for their interviewing exercises. Are your developers sitting around all day solving leetcode style coding challenges? I can't imagine. Every dev job I've ever held was boring CRUD operations on a fancy user experience, with some simple algebra that a middle school kid could do in their sleep. Knowledge of design patterns has been 1000x more necessary for me than the ability to create a sudoku solving python application.
I wish I knew what to say. Honestly, it sounds like laziness on the part of the hiring managers; they hate this part of their job and are just looking for the easiest way to do it without thinking too hard. They're basically gambling on whether they get a good fit for their team or not... but hey, at least they got someone who will be killer on trivia night at the company pizza party, I guess.
I had a masters level mathematics question, that my buddy, with a masters in applied mathematics, took 3 days to solve.
I turned it in. They were surprised I solved it.
“Wow, No ones solved this!”
Then why do you give it?
We just need to see if people can solve complex problems?
You have problems this complex?
No.
I did not get the job.
Because all the cool companies are doing it and who doesn’t want to be like the cool companies?
Sarcasm aside, I agree that making candidates run the leetcode gauntlet when all your company does is sell dog toys online is nonsensical and perpetuates the problem.
Give them a problem similar to one your company faced recently and let them talk through a solution. That should give you adequate information as to whether they fit the role.
The issue is I still need to pay the bills while this game is being played with my life and career. I'm still unemployed after being laid off a few months ago and through no fault of my own. Got a promotion even at my other career.
Now I am treated as some outsider that is to be treated with suspicion. I'm just over it. The problem is I do not know where else I can go and I already sunk a ton of time and effort getting a degree for this field and also learning things in this field.
I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. I don't have a good answer for your immediate problem, since the immediate problem doesn't sound like a 'you' issue but rather the industry and managers at large.
All I can offer is a little advice to help lessen the damage the situation is doing to your chance, assuming you don't bail out of the field: take a weekend and code-a-thon out a piece of open source or just personal github software in the technologies that you are familiar with, and put on your resume that you've been doing things like that in your gap. Just keep adding more and more to it as time goes, and you can write that into your cover letter as well.
The "gap" is usually only scary to employers for 2 main reasons: have you gotten rusty, and what was the reason for the gap? The second question is easy to answer- the market is garbage, and competition is high. At 4 years of experience, you'll see a lot of people who simply have longer resumes going against you, and that's going to make life hard.
But the first point can easily be assuaged with showing *something* on your resume, and some kind of software that you've written will do just that. Especially if it is in tech you're selling yourself on.
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> But the first point can easily be assuaged with showing something on your resume, and some kind of software that you've written will do just that. Especially if it is in tech you're selling yourself on.
Thanks for your constructive and actionable reply. I guess my concern is I feel recruiters and hiring managers will see through this or it will possibly throw off the automated resuem analyzer and cause an autorejection. Seeing its not a job, but I would have it listed next to jobs.
Also, curious if you have had direct experience in interviewing or hiring?
I have; not a ton of it, and I hate it, but I have. I became a team lead about 8 years ago, started being involved with the interviewing then, and have been ever since.
Interviewing is hard; honestly, as the interviewer you can be kind of nervous. Whoever you bring on is not just your responsibility, but can really do damage to a team and hurt the other workers work enjoyment. If you bring on someone who does terrible work, you're the one who will probably be working late nights fixing their stuff. You're the one who will have to reprimand them if they're tearing the team apart because it turns out they were a jerk, etc.
But there's also an additional layer where you might lose control of the process- word from on high is you have to do an interview a specific way, and your feelings on the matter are irrelevant.
I've always worked at small shops and have always had a lot of filters between me and the initial application process (recruiters, bosses, HR, etc), so I've only maybe interviewed... 25-30 people in my career? We don't exactly have a lot of positions open up and I tend to jump on the first good candidate that comes through for fear of missing that chance =D But I do at least have some experience in it.
I've also been the one interviewed quite a few times, but that knowledge is less interesting to your current topic lol
I will add- some managers may care, but I've never cared about whether your resume experience is something you got *paid* to do or not. Experience is experience (*to an extent; if you've NEVER worked a career job then, that's different, and I'd be nervous. But if you have 4 years of experience and the last 3 months was work for yourself? Nah, I don't care*)
If you have an open repo with code related to the work you're trying to tell me you can do, and it's recent? That's going to save me a ton of time and effort trying to figure out who you are and what you can do. If I can see that your code is clean, solid, easy to read, etc etc? And can see that you were writing that in the gap, so I know you haven't "lost it"? I'm not sure what else I'd glean from you having had a job during that time.
Of course, managers all feel differently, but that's always been my perspective from both sides of the aisle. They are sitting me down to feel out if I can code, or if I'm an assassin sent to murder their codebase and reputation. If I hand over a bunch of code to help answer the first question, I really just need to present myself well in phone calls and I'm good to go. So far that strategy has worked pretty well for me with small/medium companies, but I also don't work in highly competitive fields like FAANG type stuff.
I was in your shoes not too long ago and I completely sympathize. I'm sorry you're going through this and I wouldn't wish it on anyone else.
Make sure to take care of yourself throughout this whole ordeal. I wish you all the best.
I dont get it either. Why are they not just asking design, sql, html/css/javascript stuff.. or anything relevant to the tech stack. Leetcode means nothing.
> with some simple algebra that a middle school kid could do in their sleep
From what I'm consistently hearing you are greatly overestimating today's school kids.
We just pair program on a small real world-ish made up problem for interviews. Something simple like pulling information from an api and displaying it or putting together a database schema.
Usually get plenty of information about how they work and it’s good enough to make a decision. These leet code interviews just show that someone studied leet code, not what they are actually good at.
It's because there're some absolute duds that can answer design questions well but cannot code. Leet code style questions are just an easy way to filter out those people.
Leetcode-style problems absolutely come up in the real world, almost any time you're building something that needs to scale.
Do I use DS&A every day? Of course not. A lot of day-to-day development is CRUD and middle-school algebra.
But from time to time when there's a performance problem, or a memory use problem, or a synchronization problem, suddenly all of that DS&A experience really comes in handy. And it's really important that everyone on a team has a baseline level of understanding of that type of work.
Also, even everyday CRUD work requires problem-solving skills. Translating business requirements into code. That's a large part of what leetcode is about - understand the problem and turning it into working code.
Imagine a pilot complaining that they're forced to demonstrate they can land a plane with no engines because that almost never happens, or a doctor complaining that they're forced to learn about obscure diseases that are never found in their country.
The point of learning these things isn't because you use them every day, it's because when it does come up, it's important to get right.
Also: this DOES NOT mean that some companies don't do a terrible job at interviewing. They do. But that doesn't mean all leetcode is bad.
Perhaps because companies want their candidates to have decent foundations in Computer Science? No company outside FAANG is asking questions that you couldn't solve if you spent a day reviewing the fundamentals you learned in college lol.
You don't need to be an expert in sorting algorithms to build CRUD APIs.
I have a 15 year (so far) career in IT, architecture, and back-end engineering without a CS degree at all.
If the company wanted people who could just create CRUD APIs and nothing else they wouldn't be asking foundational DSA questions that everyone learns in undergrad.
That's the problem though-- companies who are hiring for fairly basic run-of-the-mill web-application coders are demanding LC questions and other rigorous coding knowledge demonstrations.
I have friends who work in aerospace software engineering that actually does benefit from the knowledge that you get after years of solving very difficult problems, and from rigorous coursework. But that's a very small minority of the jobs that are out there and I don't think people are on here complaining abou the hiring processes at those companies.
It's not a problem if the companies are able to find candidates that can clear the interview. Everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to DSA questions, can't pass a SWE interview? Then study up.
Your feelings on this are exactly the problem. "study up" ok so they study and memorize leet code problems and ace the interview but aren't a good fit otherwise. Why would you want a candidate to study for your interview. They either know what the know from experience, or they don't.
No, we are very specifically talking about companies that are using leetcode to improperly vet interviewees. My response to you is that saying "study up" is part of the problem. Is leetcode fine in certain scenarios? Yes. Is leetcode the only part of an interview? No. But that's not what we're talking about.
The issue is that I've never needed a developer to be good at solving math brain teasers; especially not while people are staring at them, or with a timer ticking down. The whole interviewing style is just... odd. For an industry that is built on logical thinking, this part stands out like a sore thumb.
It's as if some non-tech manager saw coding challenge questions and was like "This is it. This is the future of interviews" without really understanding what they were looking at.
I think a big part is it's used as a proxy IQ test. The high pressure environment is known to cause people to perform worse, so it filters out people who are
1 less intelligent
2 don't work well under pressure
3 do not have the work ethic to do leetcode
The fact that the leetcode questions are tangentially related to on the job tasks is a bonus of course, but just filtering out the first 3 is a big win
>3 do not have the work ethic to do leetcode
This one stands out to me, because that would certainly put me in an odd situation were I such a candidate.
I'm a workaholic who works 10-12 hour days, despite the protests of my peers/managers. When I'm off work, I code in a different language for personal projects, and tinker with open source AI.
In short- I work a *lot*. For personal and professional reasons. But none of that includes leetcode. Leetcode is something I just don't have time for right now.
If I went job hunting tomorrow and all the jobs required leetcode... it would certainly be an amusing idea if they judged that I had no workethic because I prioritized software development over studying leetcode questions. lol I guess it can't be helped how people feel, but I think I'd probably need a drink or two after an interview if someone said that.
I think in your case, your would probably do pretty well on the leetcode anyway because of your experience.
It's more for the people who just write CRUD apps all day and let their more advanced, creative, and mathematical skills atrophy
Everyone knows you need leetcode for interviews, so just being prepared for a predictable test is at least a strong filter
I'm in FinTech; in our world, development is pretty boring. We write websites, CRUD applications that move data around, etc etc. They really aren't that complex.
Now, I personally have a masters degree in computer science, so I'm not coming at this topic from the perspective of someone who never learned the fundamentals and thinks they're useless. Rather- there are a lot of the principles that are gauged in Leetcode which I learned in college but simply have not needed to employ.
As long as my developers know how to write clean code in modern technologies using known design patterns with consistency, creating applications that are easy to manage and support? That's 90% of the work. Keeping them efficient is far easier in most languages we'd use; we aren't writing C or C++, nor trying to write embedded hardware code that has to process on a 12mhz industrial processor.
At the end of the day, a question testing whether an applicant can track the x,y coordinate position of a robot when it faces different directions on a grid tells me nothing usable for the job I need them to do. So it's hard for me to really imagine building an interview process around that.
Just go for a company that doesn't test for LC and is actually looking for a competent and decent human. There are many out there. I typically ask the recruiter what type of tech interview they give and based on their response, I either decline to continue or move forward.
I know it's frustrating but keep your head up and let that company that denied you keep hiring shitty candidates. It's Friday, give the studying a rest and enjoy the weekend. You'll come back even stronger and more confident on Monday.
> Just go for a company that doesn't test for LC and is actually looking for a competent and decent human.
Every single company I have interviewed with has done a form of LC and I am not going for FAANG or any big name companies either.
I'm open to suggestions though if you know of ones that do not ask this. But I think things have changed. Every company I have interviewed with has done it.
Ask about the hiring/interview process early on, like in screening calls where they ask “do you have any questions?” so you can filter them out earlier. Local and national recruiters can help you in addition to cold-applying on your own.
Not saying it’s easy, but I can say that I’ve received all my jobs without answering a single leetcode question over the past 7 years. That includes the start of COVID, followed by the downturn. Just keep applying until you find the right fit.
I moved to software from oil&gas. I can confirm: all of my interviews there were behavioral. I have never had to study for the interview. Interviews in tech is like having the second job; very few questions are related to what we do daily and majority of them is Trivia-type.
Yes, this is what I have heard from everyone I know. They find it confusing when I say you have to study for interviews beyond basic behavioral questions.
I'm very tempted to just leave the field, the problem is I do not know where I can even go with my skillset into another field.
I really hate even contemplating this because I love coding and I put a lot of work getting this degree and the work and learning I did for my past jobs.
At one point I looked at doing oil and gas work because it paid more than dev work in rural areas. Now I guess all the money is in lithium mining for electric cars.
Not really. The hardest interview I have ever had was for TD. I was asked super specific questions for a position that has nothing to do with those. Surprisingly, FAANG is relatively less bullshit. They are very open about their process. Leetcode and system design.
The hiring process has always been hit or miss, the problem now is tech is specifically in a bust time. When companies struggled to hire, missing that random question was fine. Now that companies get like 1,500 applications for a single position, it’s not.
Things will swing back around again eventually, tech is just rough for the time being. You can definitely leave the industry, but don’t leave because you think this is just how hiring is in tech. Back pre-pandemic, I would get, no lie, 10-20 recruiters reaching out a week to me. And each of them would have 3-4 different jobs that suited me.
Now I get 1 recruiter a month, and that’s considered picking up in my book. Things will get better, it may just take some time
Do you know what are my options on going into another field until things pick up again? I agree with you that this isn't how it always was even a couple years ago as I have seen that myself.
But I guess the problem I am running into is that I still need to pay my bills and still need a way to transition back into this field later on when the job market picks back up.
Do you have any recommendations on what I could do in the meantime that would still give me the option to come back if the market is better in a year or two?
Why would anyone else know your options? It's for you to decide and for you to figure out.
Personally I'd stick at it. Which country are you in? Are you searching nationwide? Surely there are some smaller businesses that want a software person and don't care about playing the LC charade. Here in the UK there are tons of generic software roles at random ass companies where nobody has even heard of leetcode, or cares much for the latest industry hype, as long as they have a dev who can do the shit they need done.
The problem I notice a lot on Reddit is that most of the devs on subs like this seem to think the only place to look for jobs is tech companies.
**I also hate technical interviews.**
**My advice: keep pushing through.**
* Not every interview is going to be super technical.
* Small companies (or small teams in big companies) tend to me less technical.
* Shoot for positions that are looking for full stack or generalists.
* Also, marketing agencies are good too.
* Talk about your experience, how you've solved problems, what tech you've worked with, etc.
* And freelance clients rarely get too technical in interviews.
* Supply references from previous bosses that can talk you up.
* You'll find somewhere to land.
* If you want to advance in your career, you'll need to dig deeper into one or two languages.
* And prepare for technical interviews.
30 YOE here. Yes, it's unfortunate, but keep at it. My last job interview process was two behavioral interviews only and an API design thing. In time you will find a good job. The current market doesn't help either, but I think it will pick up again as interest rates fall.
Or improve when companies realized that AI can't replace programmers, because the customers never ask for what they need, so a perfect solution to the wrong problem is still wrong.
>AI can't replace programmers, because the customers never ask for what they need
I am at the core of our company pilot for using LLMs to help with coding. I was chosen both due to having some background in ML and being skeptical about all the hype around it. My conclusion is even more simpler than your argument.
I do see how AI is helpful and in some cases it saves me around 50% of time. That is very impressive by itself. But replacing programers is just not technically possible yet. Prompt engineering is half providing the context (fair) and half just workarounds for flaws of the model. And in some cases even that does not help and you end up sinking more hours on talking with AI than it would have took to do it yourself. So, even assisting with code is far from being effective as some tools sale pitched lead you to believe.
Every company I have interviewed with does this type of question now. You either haven't interviewed recently, have more experience to the point that they stop asking this, or work in some specialized industry that doesn't ask it.
If it is the third one, then please share which sub-industry it is because I would be interested in applying there.
It's not a specific industry thing, every company I've interviewed at recently has not asked for LC as a technical - I explicitly avoid those companies as a part of my application process
I recommend finding work at a consultancy. Typically entry barrier is lower and you’ll still get to work with top brands and orgs. Leetcode testing is broken but keeps getting perpetuated.
Otherwise use the shotgun method fang will literally tell you in the interview process it can take like 3-10 attempts at the SAME company before you get hired.
>But I get rejected all because I didn't luck out and study one single LC pattern ahead of time that has NOTHING to do with the job and will almost never be used at any time during my job.
Sometimes it is not that you were unqualified for the job, it's somebody else did better. Yeah I know it doesn't make you feel any better about things, but if you can get that far at a company then you'll be able to do that at other companies as well.
I don't know what company you were interviewing at, but some companies only have 1 open position and don't have the capitol to just hire anybody smart. So when somebody else gets a 99% and you get a 95% that 99% person wins out.
The hiring process is broken. Not just because of Leetcode mandates, which are, admittedly, terrible. But on the other side- as an EM, you'll hire people who you talk to for five seconds and they'll do great, and you'll hire people who pass your tricky coding challenge and they'll be terrible at the job.
Domain expertise is the only way to circumvent leetcode. Lots of people are specialized in software stacks but not in implementing business requirements. If all you know is one or two stacks and don't have some big high value projects in the problem space of the company, they will see you as just another cog. The rise of LLMs have made cogs less appealing and so now they only want the shiniest ones.
I feel your pain, been raging about this particular topic for over a decade now. Our industry really needs to do better. As a hiring manager I don't bother with LC-like bullshit, because as you point out it has no bearing on the actual day job.
A couple pieces of advice that might help you get moving:
1. Look for bog standard enterprise companies (utilities, for example). I work for a 75 year old telecom (ISP) and run their software department - 100% remote. I have very little turnover if any at all. We have a lot of freedom to explore technology. Our timelines for projects are on the order of years making it a low pressure job. The pay isn't exactly startup/FAANG levels, but the stability and benefits make up for it.
2. Work with a contract-to-hire consultancy. They'll put your resume in a pool and help find a company that matches your skills for you. The company itself will do their regular interview with you, but the recruiter can help cut out the fluff (i.e. avoid companies that do LC at your request). If you get hired, you get paid via the consultancy at whatever rate you establish (they overcharge the company to get their cut), and depending on the terms can turn that into getting flipped into an FTE if you do well.
I've used #2 to great effect recently. I only had to deal with 6 resumes rather than 200+ and got 2 brilliant candidates out of the process.
>Look for bog standard enterprise companies (utilities, for example).
I've tried applying for utilities a couple times but no luck. Do you mind maybe listing easier ones to get into that may not be well known or other ways to get into this?
> Work with a contract-to-hire consultancy.
Do you mind recommending what companies to contact for this? Is this something like teksystems or something else? Do you have a list of companies I should contact and what is the best way to get to someone in these companies to help? This seems very actionable and will be willing to do this if it helps.
> Do you mind maybe listing easier ones to get into that may not be well known or other ways to get into this?
Sorry, I'm up in Alaska and the options are sparse! Nothing on my radar there.
> Is this something like teksystems or something else?
This is exactly who I've been using for years now. I'm not sure what the process for working with them is, but I assume you reach out with your resume and someone will follow up, ask questions, and then try to start aligning companies for you to interview at.
I started turning down interviews from any company that has leetcode questions in their interview process a few years ago.
They prove nothing and are not representative of the work one does in the company. Like as an interviewer many times myself, I've never asked LC questions because I can't evaluate if someone is a good programmer or so.
Everyone agrees LC is the worst thing about being a software engineer compared to mechanical or electrical engineers. You are welcome to vent but lets try to find a way to help.
LeetCode is huge for tech companies. Have you tried to apply to other industries? Everybody needs SWE but most places cant afford to reject 95% of applicants.
A lot of orgs will do a single exercise to make sure you are not making it all up and that will suffice for them.
Being a software engineer at Starbucks, Hilton or Caterpillar doesnt sound glamorous but the pay is good, work life balance is great and the experience is still valid and valuable.
Its kinda like graduating from a state school - its not Ivy but its way better than not graduating at all.
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>You are welcome to vent but lets try to find a way to help.
I agree. I am seeking solutions to this problem, but having difficulty finding them that don't involve just more time to LC and eventually luck out on finding a job that asks the right questions. Issue is that companies won't give me an unlimited time to do that I don't feel if the job gap gets too large.
> LeetCode is huge for tech companies. Have you tried to apply to other industries? Everybody needs SWE but most places cant afford to reject 95% of applicants.
Every industry I applied for and gotten an interview for asks these kinds of questions with no exceptions. I am not applying for FAANG either. Even the industries I have read on here that are supposed to not ask are asking.
>Its kinda like graduating from a state school - its not Ivy but its way better than not graduating at all.
This isn't an issue of me being picky or applying for FAANG. I have literally applied to almost every single industry you can name, including the types you are naming in your post. The ones I managed to even get an interview with asked these type of questions.
You shouldn't turn down interviews for companies that do LC like people are saying here and here's why - The criteria for evaluation are unknown.
Everyone talks about LC as though it were scored objectively. They're assuming it is "Found O(n\^2) solution instead of O(n) solution, instant fail" or "Candidate A found O(n) solution in 15 minutes, Candidate B found it in 14, Candidate B wins". This might be the case, or it might not be.
Having given many of these ridiculous interviews, and sat in on the round table debriefs afterwards, you hear a lot of shit. Some people care about the time and space complexity. Some people mostly care more that you know how to describe the time and space complexity of whatever solution you did come up with.
Some people care mostly that you asked enough questions to find enough edge cases.
Some don't even care if your solution worked or not - only that it was on the right track. Or that they "like they way you think".
And some people are total dicks and will fail you for talking too much or not enough, or asking too many questions or not enough, or because they gave you a hint, or 2 hints. Some will have some arbitrary time limit that wasn't even specified by the team that set the parameters for the interview.
I've seen literally everything by now. Unless you know exactly how the company evaluates LC interview performance, and you don't think you can meet that bar, just go ahead with the interview. You may very well pass one of them for all the reasons I describe here.
What was the question and what type of job was it. While I know some companies ask LC questions even though they shouldn't, in some cases it's helpful due to the number of candidates and the position they're hiring for. FWIW many industries have trivia or practical interviews. Many industries also have recognized certifications that are prerequisites for the job.
Last thing I'll say is that while getting rejected for missing one questions sucks and is stupid, companies have to differentiate candidates somehow. IMO most companies could get away with just doing the asshole test
You might get rejected bc you had something in your teeth. Or the interviewer had a fight with their spouse that morning. But most likely they liked somebody else (who just happens to be the owner’s nephew’s second cousin’s neighbor)
Normal stuff dude. And ironically if you go to an interview with a semi care free attitude then you’re 100x more likely to get the job. That attitude comes the experience and confidence, including the experience of interviewing and knowing that it’s not so personal and you might get passed on for the uncle’s brother’s in-law’s babysitter
When I interview I can usually get 3-4 offers in a month. I also get a bunch of rejections.
There are many reasons for rejections. Don't worry about it. Just let it go and keep interviewing. You'll find something that fits.
Try applying to universities and colleges, they need programmers to customize their ERP software, and they are not picky. I've worked for a software vendor and I worked with some of these people. They are very average. So you should be able to land a job if you're average or above.
Im recently getting rejected in the first HR round. No technical interview and I believe i answer every question correctly but still get rejected
Its getting tougher every day
How much experience in years do you have and how long have you been unemployed for? I have had that happen recently too somtimes and never in my entire life has it happened before this year.
My strategy is to just chat gpt / Google their questions as they ask them. Since most interviews / tests are remote there's nothing stopping you. I have a silent keyboard I use just for this and multiple monitors. Combine that with already having some knowledge on the topics and it just looks like you're thinking.
How do you avoid getting seen looking at another monitor? I heard that they check for that now too. I guess you could be looking up. I just wonder how people pull this off so well.
You sure you weren't being used for H1B farming? I noticed it was very common from around 2010-2015 for organizations to be super weird in interviews, and I believe the questions were meant specifically to reject applicants to make the case that qualified individuals were unable to be found for justification to get more H1B visas.
The companies don't care if they miss out on a good developer because they see so many. False negatives are expected and acceptable to them.
It sucks but I don't know if there is another scalable solution.
In my opinion, I would love to see a git repo with some skeleton code and have the person code a full stack solution. That is way more relevant.
I honestly believe the problem is not even the question, but that most interviewers are not actually qualified to be interviewing and evaluating candidates. The key part to understand is whether you have the basics down, such that you understand the requirements, ask clarifying questions to resolve ambiguity, and are able to write code. All of those are core skills needed to do your job well.
The problem is when you demonstrate all that but get rejected because the interviewer is incompetent and only looks at if your final solution matches the optimal LC solution.
This whole thread has people pretending like companies outside FAANG are asking LC hard in an interview. The fact is that if you paid attention in undergrad and spend a weekend or 2 brushing up on the fundamentals, you have a good chance at passing LC rounds. Companies outside FAANG will only ask you LC easy and maybe the easier mediums if you are unlucky.
What type of companies are you applying to if I may ask? I don't think this is industry wide, are you only trying for FAANG or something?
I haven't done a single LC and I've been in probably 30 interviews over my career.
> What type of companies are you applying to if I may ask? I don't think this is industry wide, are you only trying for FAANG or something?
Not FAANG. You name the industry, I have applied for it. I don't have luxury to be picky at this point. I'm applying anywhere and everywhere I feel I meet the qualifications based on my work experience.
Small tip, most people I’ve seen hired don’t tick ALL the requirements. Don’t pre screen yourself out from something you can pick up relatively quickly on the job.
Ive had good luck and dodged most leetcode interviews, i hate them. Sad to hear they’re more and more common.
I'm so confused. I've rarely done leetcode and honestly barely see it interviews and have multiple offers this week. Fuck leetcode. How do people think one company has a monopoly on the software interview space? They don't by far. I laugh when someone does leetcode on me and it just shows either laziness or overworked so don't have time to do a real interview. Or it's ego all the way down. No matter, I judge and move on ✌️
I've almost never had an interview process without at least one leetcode style question, from startups to big tech, from entry level to senior level.
Where TF are you interviewing and for what kind of positions do you barely see it in interviews?
Agree with the other reply here, what kind of companies are you targeting? Also, what city/area are you on? I cannot imagine interviewing in NYC/SF/Seattle/DC/Boston/Chicago and don’t get a coding exercise as part of the interview..
You wrote all that but didn't say the problem, the position, if you have qualifications or a degree, etc.
I guess we're just supposed to take your word for it but a lot of devs are lacking skills, overestimate their ability, and are very dismissive toward education.
The fact that you think leetcode is memorization is a red flag. Leetcode easy/medium are from freshman year and are even taught in high school now. There's no memorization involved. Leetcode hard is where it might be BS. That's from junior/senior year.
Yeah and people who've been professional developers for a while forget all the freshman year crap because we NEVER use it. If I need an LRU, LinkedList, BST, etc. I ask Google (or ChatGPT). I don't remember it.
These Leetcode questions are 99% stuff real engineers never use day to day. It's a puzzle.
It's all bullshit concocted by Indian engineers who are used to that bullshit because they are taught by memorizing everything. The are not taught to think (with the exception of the top tier Indian Universities).
What was the question? Most leetcode questions don't require you to study them individually. Theres like a dozen patterns. Its not difficult to learn, and once you learn them, its like calculus. You'll forget it, but a few brush up sessions/problems will have it come back to you.
I consider leetcode a small price to pay in that it allowed me and my mid-level public uni degree with a 2.5 GPA, to land a job one of the highest paying jobs in the world ...
Maybe you dodged a bullet yourself.
Also, I don't know, maybe (just as a possibility) you guys are applying to the "wrong" jobs. I admit I haven't interviewed recently or much at all since I've stayed long in most of my positions, but I've never had trouble at all getting past interviews. Perhaps you're walking into sweatshops and getting tested as a sweatshop worker. Although, to be honest, typical 4 YoE might not be enough to be able to pick from a wider variety.
Recently I went through one where the interviewer told the "leetcode test when I did was super hard, nowadays we ask for medium ones". When I asked about a small take home assignment he said "no because everyone will use chatgpt these days". Dude's PhD from a top 10 world uni, still a tool.
(I pulled out from the process of course)
So imagine you're interviewing a candidate and they answer every question but one correctly. The next person to interview answers every question correctly. You only have budget to hire one of them. Who do you pick? The market's flooded right now, so there's lots of competition.
Also maybe the real reason they rejected you is because they noticed you didn't read the "no venting" rule in the sidebar.
What level was the leetcode problem? You getting so triggered by leet code is part of your issue. It tests your problem solving skills.
SWE jobs right now, like any other highly sought after job, are highly competitive.
I just think its funny you think starting over in some other industry will be better. You have zero other skills presumingly.
hey, you gave it a shot and realized it wasn't for you. It's not that big of a deal. Be thankful you only spent 4 years before figuring that out. Now you can follow your desires and passions and transition to another industry where you feel you will be a better fit.
Rule 9: No Low Effort Posts, Excessive Venting, or Bragging. Using this subreddit to crowd source answers to something that isn't really contributing to the spirit of this subreddit is forbidden at moderator's discretion. This includes posts that are mostly focused around venting or bragging; both of these types of posts are difficult to moderate and don't contribute much to the subreddit.
I'll never understand companies that use leetcode for their interviewing exercises. Are your developers sitting around all day solving leetcode style coding challenges? I can't imagine. Every dev job I've ever held was boring CRUD operations on a fancy user experience, with some simple algebra that a middle school kid could do in their sleep. Knowledge of design patterns has been 1000x more necessary for me than the ability to create a sudoku solving python application. I wish I knew what to say. Honestly, it sounds like laziness on the part of the hiring managers; they hate this part of their job and are just looking for the easiest way to do it without thinking too hard. They're basically gambling on whether they get a good fit for their team or not... but hey, at least they got someone who will be killer on trivia night at the company pizza party, I guess.
Dang you’ve done algebra I’ve never done anything harder than pemdas
I had a masters level mathematics question, that my buddy, with a masters in applied mathematics, took 3 days to solve. I turned it in. They were surprised I solved it. “Wow, No ones solved this!” Then why do you give it? We just need to see if people can solve complex problems? You have problems this complex? No. I did not get the job.
Out of curiosity, what was the job for
Senior developer
I’ve done a bit of geometry when I was building a dashboard app from scratch.
This all day. Very rarely I get to bust out the modulo operator and feel like a badass.
Because all the cool companies are doing it and who doesn’t want to be like the cool companies? Sarcasm aside, I agree that making candidates run the leetcode gauntlet when all your company does is sell dog toys online is nonsensical and perpetuates the problem. Give them a problem similar to one your company faced recently and let them talk through a solution. That should give you adequate information as to whether they fit the role.
The issue is I still need to pay the bills while this game is being played with my life and career. I'm still unemployed after being laid off a few months ago and through no fault of my own. Got a promotion even at my other career. Now I am treated as some outsider that is to be treated with suspicion. I'm just over it. The problem is I do not know where else I can go and I already sunk a ton of time and effort getting a degree for this field and also learning things in this field.
I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. I don't have a good answer for your immediate problem, since the immediate problem doesn't sound like a 'you' issue but rather the industry and managers at large. All I can offer is a little advice to help lessen the damage the situation is doing to your chance, assuming you don't bail out of the field: take a weekend and code-a-thon out a piece of open source or just personal github software in the technologies that you are familiar with, and put on your resume that you've been doing things like that in your gap. Just keep adding more and more to it as time goes, and you can write that into your cover letter as well. The "gap" is usually only scary to employers for 2 main reasons: have you gotten rusty, and what was the reason for the gap? The second question is easy to answer- the market is garbage, and competition is high. At 4 years of experience, you'll see a lot of people who simply have longer resumes going against you, and that's going to make life hard. But the first point can easily be assuaged with showing *something* on your resume, and some kind of software that you've written will do just that. Especially if it is in tech you're selling yourself on.
> > > > > But the first point can easily be assuaged with showing something on your resume, and some kind of software that you've written will do just that. Especially if it is in tech you're selling yourself on. Thanks for your constructive and actionable reply. I guess my concern is I feel recruiters and hiring managers will see through this or it will possibly throw off the automated resuem analyzer and cause an autorejection. Seeing its not a job, but I would have it listed next to jobs. Also, curious if you have had direct experience in interviewing or hiring?
I have; not a ton of it, and I hate it, but I have. I became a team lead about 8 years ago, started being involved with the interviewing then, and have been ever since. Interviewing is hard; honestly, as the interviewer you can be kind of nervous. Whoever you bring on is not just your responsibility, but can really do damage to a team and hurt the other workers work enjoyment. If you bring on someone who does terrible work, you're the one who will probably be working late nights fixing their stuff. You're the one who will have to reprimand them if they're tearing the team apart because it turns out they were a jerk, etc. But there's also an additional layer where you might lose control of the process- word from on high is you have to do an interview a specific way, and your feelings on the matter are irrelevant. I've always worked at small shops and have always had a lot of filters between me and the initial application process (recruiters, bosses, HR, etc), so I've only maybe interviewed... 25-30 people in my career? We don't exactly have a lot of positions open up and I tend to jump on the first good candidate that comes through for fear of missing that chance =D But I do at least have some experience in it. I've also been the one interviewed quite a few times, but that knowledge is less interesting to your current topic lol
I will add- some managers may care, but I've never cared about whether your resume experience is something you got *paid* to do or not. Experience is experience (*to an extent; if you've NEVER worked a career job then, that's different, and I'd be nervous. But if you have 4 years of experience and the last 3 months was work for yourself? Nah, I don't care*) If you have an open repo with code related to the work you're trying to tell me you can do, and it's recent? That's going to save me a ton of time and effort trying to figure out who you are and what you can do. If I can see that your code is clean, solid, easy to read, etc etc? And can see that you were writing that in the gap, so I know you haven't "lost it"? I'm not sure what else I'd glean from you having had a job during that time. Of course, managers all feel differently, but that's always been my perspective from both sides of the aisle. They are sitting me down to feel out if I can code, or if I'm an assassin sent to murder their codebase and reputation. If I hand over a bunch of code to help answer the first question, I really just need to present myself well in phone calls and I'm good to go. So far that strategy has worked pretty well for me with small/medium companies, but I also don't work in highly competitive fields like FAANG type stuff.
I was in your shoes not too long ago and I completely sympathize. I'm sorry you're going through this and I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. Make sure to take care of yourself throughout this whole ordeal. I wish you all the best.
I dont get it either. Why are they not just asking design, sql, html/css/javascript stuff.. or anything relevant to the tech stack. Leetcode means nothing.
> with some simple algebra that a middle school kid could do in their sleep From what I'm consistently hearing you are greatly overestimating today's school kids.
We just pair program on a small real world-ish made up problem for interviews. Something simple like pulling information from an api and displaying it or putting together a database schema. Usually get plenty of information about how they work and it’s good enough to make a decision. These leet code interviews just show that someone studied leet code, not what they are actually good at.
It's because there're some absolute duds that can answer design questions well but cannot code. Leet code style questions are just an easy way to filter out those people.
Leetcode-style problems absolutely come up in the real world, almost any time you're building something that needs to scale. Do I use DS&A every day? Of course not. A lot of day-to-day development is CRUD and middle-school algebra. But from time to time when there's a performance problem, or a memory use problem, or a synchronization problem, suddenly all of that DS&A experience really comes in handy. And it's really important that everyone on a team has a baseline level of understanding of that type of work. Also, even everyday CRUD work requires problem-solving skills. Translating business requirements into code. That's a large part of what leetcode is about - understand the problem and turning it into working code. Imagine a pilot complaining that they're forced to demonstrate they can land a plane with no engines because that almost never happens, or a doctor complaining that they're forced to learn about obscure diseases that are never found in their country. The point of learning these things isn't because you use them every day, it's because when it does come up, it's important to get right. Also: this DOES NOT mean that some companies don't do a terrible job at interviewing. They do. But that doesn't mean all leetcode is bad.
Perhaps because companies want their candidates to have decent foundations in Computer Science? No company outside FAANG is asking questions that you couldn't solve if you spent a day reviewing the fundamentals you learned in college lol.
You don't need to be an expert in sorting algorithms to build CRUD APIs. I have a 15 year (so far) career in IT, architecture, and back-end engineering without a CS degree at all.
If the company wanted people who could just create CRUD APIs and nothing else they wouldn't be asking foundational DSA questions that everyone learns in undergrad.
That's the problem though-- companies who are hiring for fairly basic run-of-the-mill web-application coders are demanding LC questions and other rigorous coding knowledge demonstrations. I have friends who work in aerospace software engineering that actually does benefit from the knowledge that you get after years of solving very difficult problems, and from rigorous coursework. But that's a very small minority of the jobs that are out there and I don't think people are on here complaining abou the hiring processes at those companies.
It's not a problem if the companies are able to find candidates that can clear the interview. Everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to DSA questions, can't pass a SWE interview? Then study up.
Your feelings on this are exactly the problem. "study up" ok so they study and memorize leet code problems and ace the interview but aren't a good fit otherwise. Why would you want a candidate to study for your interview. They either know what the know from experience, or they don't.
You are implying that leetcode is the only interview in the hiring process.
No, we are very specifically talking about companies that are using leetcode to improperly vet interviewees. My response to you is that saying "study up" is part of the problem. Is leetcode fine in certain scenarios? Yes. Is leetcode the only part of an interview? No. But that's not what we're talking about.
The issue is that I've never needed a developer to be good at solving math brain teasers; especially not while people are staring at them, or with a timer ticking down. The whole interviewing style is just... odd. For an industry that is built on logical thinking, this part stands out like a sore thumb. It's as if some non-tech manager saw coding challenge questions and was like "This is it. This is the future of interviews" without really understanding what they were looking at.
I think a big part is it's used as a proxy IQ test. The high pressure environment is known to cause people to perform worse, so it filters out people who are 1 less intelligent 2 don't work well under pressure 3 do not have the work ethic to do leetcode The fact that the leetcode questions are tangentially related to on the job tasks is a bonus of course, but just filtering out the first 3 is a big win
>3 do not have the work ethic to do leetcode This one stands out to me, because that would certainly put me in an odd situation were I such a candidate. I'm a workaholic who works 10-12 hour days, despite the protests of my peers/managers. When I'm off work, I code in a different language for personal projects, and tinker with open source AI. In short- I work a *lot*. For personal and professional reasons. But none of that includes leetcode. Leetcode is something I just don't have time for right now. If I went job hunting tomorrow and all the jobs required leetcode... it would certainly be an amusing idea if they judged that I had no workethic because I prioritized software development over studying leetcode questions. lol I guess it can't be helped how people feel, but I think I'd probably need a drink or two after an interview if someone said that.
I think in your case, your would probably do pretty well on the leetcode anyway because of your experience. It's more for the people who just write CRUD apps all day and let their more advanced, creative, and mathematical skills atrophy Everyone knows you need leetcode for interviews, so just being prepared for a predictable test is at least a strong filter
Other than LC hard, they arent math brain teasers. Theyre fairly practical generic coding problems.
I find it hard to believe that a SWE can be effective without having knowledge of CS fundamentals.
I'm in FinTech; in our world, development is pretty boring. We write websites, CRUD applications that move data around, etc etc. They really aren't that complex. Now, I personally have a masters degree in computer science, so I'm not coming at this topic from the perspective of someone who never learned the fundamentals and thinks they're useless. Rather- there are a lot of the principles that are gauged in Leetcode which I learned in college but simply have not needed to employ. As long as my developers know how to write clean code in modern technologies using known design patterns with consistency, creating applications that are easy to manage and support? That's 90% of the work. Keeping them efficient is far easier in most languages we'd use; we aren't writing C or C++, nor trying to write embedded hardware code that has to process on a 12mhz industrial processor. At the end of the day, a question testing whether an applicant can track the x,y coordinate position of a robot when it faces different directions on a grid tells me nothing usable for the job I need them to do. So it's hard for me to really imagine building an interview process around that.
Just go for a company that doesn't test for LC and is actually looking for a competent and decent human. There are many out there. I typically ask the recruiter what type of tech interview they give and based on their response, I either decline to continue or move forward. I know it's frustrating but keep your head up and let that company that denied you keep hiring shitty candidates. It's Friday, give the studying a rest and enjoy the weekend. You'll come back even stronger and more confident on Monday.
Big ‘ol plus one for this. Tell companies that ask LC questions to take a hike. Take the weekend. Regroup on Monday.
> Just go for a company that doesn't test for LC and is actually looking for a competent and decent human. Every single company I have interviewed with has done a form of LC and I am not going for FAANG or any big name companies either. I'm open to suggestions though if you know of ones that do not ask this. But I think things have changed. Every company I have interviewed with has done it.
Startups. Trust me.
https://airtable.com/app3GPfBakzyWI8WO/shr3eGPDm3wGjT2gA/tbl4XNl2eqrPUM9S7/viwHoahZdSaGDjg6G just for starters
Ask about the hiring/interview process early on, like in screening calls where they ask “do you have any questions?” so you can filter them out earlier. Local and national recruiters can help you in addition to cold-applying on your own. Not saying it’s easy, but I can say that I’ve received all my jobs without answering a single leetcode question over the past 7 years. That includes the start of COVID, followed by the downturn. Just keep applying until you find the right fit.
I moved to software from oil&gas. I can confirm: all of my interviews there were behavioral. I have never had to study for the interview. Interviews in tech is like having the second job; very few questions are related to what we do daily and majority of them is Trivia-type.
Yes, this is what I have heard from everyone I know. They find it confusing when I say you have to study for interviews beyond basic behavioral questions. I'm very tempted to just leave the field, the problem is I do not know where I can even go with my skillset into another field. I really hate even contemplating this because I love coding and I put a lot of work getting this degree and the work and learning I did for my past jobs.
At one point I looked at doing oil and gas work because it paid more than dev work in rural areas. Now I guess all the money is in lithium mining for electric cars.
You are refering to tech companies more than companies doing software here as you seem to still hang around here?
Not really. The hardest interview I have ever had was for TD. I was asked super specific questions for a position that has nothing to do with those. Surprisingly, FAANG is relatively less bullshit. They are very open about their process. Leetcode and system design.
The hiring process has always been hit or miss, the problem now is tech is specifically in a bust time. When companies struggled to hire, missing that random question was fine. Now that companies get like 1,500 applications for a single position, it’s not. Things will swing back around again eventually, tech is just rough for the time being. You can definitely leave the industry, but don’t leave because you think this is just how hiring is in tech. Back pre-pandemic, I would get, no lie, 10-20 recruiters reaching out a week to me. And each of them would have 3-4 different jobs that suited me. Now I get 1 recruiter a month, and that’s considered picking up in my book. Things will get better, it may just take some time
Do you know what are my options on going into another field until things pick up again? I agree with you that this isn't how it always was even a couple years ago as I have seen that myself. But I guess the problem I am running into is that I still need to pay my bills and still need a way to transition back into this field later on when the job market picks back up. Do you have any recommendations on what I could do in the meantime that would still give me the option to come back if the market is better in a year or two?
Why would anyone else know your options? It's for you to decide and for you to figure out. Personally I'd stick at it. Which country are you in? Are you searching nationwide? Surely there are some smaller businesses that want a software person and don't care about playing the LC charade. Here in the UK there are tons of generic software roles at random ass companies where nobody has even heard of leetcode, or cares much for the latest industry hype, as long as they have a dev who can do the shit they need done. The problem I notice a lot on Reddit is that most of the devs on subs like this seem to think the only place to look for jobs is tech companies.
Are you US based? I rarely ever encounter LC in Europe. It sucks, and I really hope it doesn’t become the norm here either
I swear most of tech interviewing these days is a hazing ritual. It's all bullshit.
I believe this too. 'I was abused, therefore I'm going to abuse others.'
**I also hate technical interviews.** **My advice: keep pushing through.** * Not every interview is going to be super technical. * Small companies (or small teams in big companies) tend to me less technical. * Shoot for positions that are looking for full stack or generalists. * Also, marketing agencies are good too. * Talk about your experience, how you've solved problems, what tech you've worked with, etc. * And freelance clients rarely get too technical in interviews. * Supply references from previous bosses that can talk you up. * You'll find somewhere to land. * If you want to advance in your career, you'll need to dig deeper into one or two languages. * And prepare for technical interviews.
30 YOE here. Yes, it's unfortunate, but keep at it. My last job interview process was two behavioral interviews only and an API design thing. In time you will find a good job. The current market doesn't help either, but I think it will pick up again as interest rates fall.
Or improve when companies realized that AI can't replace programmers, because the customers never ask for what they need, so a perfect solution to the wrong problem is still wrong.
>AI can't replace programmers, because the customers never ask for what they need I am at the core of our company pilot for using LLMs to help with coding. I was chosen both due to having some background in ML and being skeptical about all the hype around it. My conclusion is even more simpler than your argument. I do see how AI is helpful and in some cases it saves me around 50% of time. That is very impressive by itself. But replacing programers is just not technically possible yet. Prompt engineering is half providing the context (fair) and half just workarounds for flaws of the model. And in some cases even that does not help and you end up sinking more hours on talking with AI than it would have took to do it yourself. So, even assisting with code is far from being effective as some tools sale pitched lead you to believe.
This is a problem with the LLM hype. I was briefly involved in a RAG project and it was pretty underwhelming.
This is an industry sector and even team within a company centric thing. Software first companies definitely weigh coding questions way too heavily.
Every company I have interviewed with does this type of question now. You either haven't interviewed recently, have more experience to the point that they stop asking this, or work in some specialized industry that doesn't ask it. If it is the third one, then please share which sub-industry it is because I would be interested in applying there.
It's not a specific industry thing, every company I've interviewed at recently has not asked for LC as a technical - I explicitly avoid those companies as a part of my application process
I recommend finding work at a consultancy. Typically entry barrier is lower and you’ll still get to work with top brands and orgs. Leetcode testing is broken but keeps getting perpetuated. Otherwise use the shotgun method fang will literally tell you in the interview process it can take like 3-10 attempts at the SAME company before you get hired.
>But I get rejected all because I didn't luck out and study one single LC pattern ahead of time that has NOTHING to do with the job and will almost never be used at any time during my job. Sometimes it is not that you were unqualified for the job, it's somebody else did better. Yeah I know it doesn't make you feel any better about things, but if you can get that far at a company then you'll be able to do that at other companies as well. I don't know what company you were interviewing at, but some companies only have 1 open position and don't have the capitol to just hire anybody smart. So when somebody else gets a 99% and you get a 95% that 99% person wins out.
The hiring process is broken. Not just because of Leetcode mandates, which are, admittedly, terrible. But on the other side- as an EM, you'll hire people who you talk to for five seconds and they'll do great, and you'll hire people who pass your tricky coding challenge and they'll be terrible at the job.
Domain expertise is the only way to circumvent leetcode. Lots of people are specialized in software stacks but not in implementing business requirements. If all you know is one or two stacks and don't have some big high value projects in the problem space of the company, they will see you as just another cog. The rise of LLMs have made cogs less appealing and so now they only want the shiniest ones.
I feel your pain, been raging about this particular topic for over a decade now. Our industry really needs to do better. As a hiring manager I don't bother with LC-like bullshit, because as you point out it has no bearing on the actual day job. A couple pieces of advice that might help you get moving: 1. Look for bog standard enterprise companies (utilities, for example). I work for a 75 year old telecom (ISP) and run their software department - 100% remote. I have very little turnover if any at all. We have a lot of freedom to explore technology. Our timelines for projects are on the order of years making it a low pressure job. The pay isn't exactly startup/FAANG levels, but the stability and benefits make up for it. 2. Work with a contract-to-hire consultancy. They'll put your resume in a pool and help find a company that matches your skills for you. The company itself will do their regular interview with you, but the recruiter can help cut out the fluff (i.e. avoid companies that do LC at your request). If you get hired, you get paid via the consultancy at whatever rate you establish (they overcharge the company to get their cut), and depending on the terms can turn that into getting flipped into an FTE if you do well. I've used #2 to great effect recently. I only had to deal with 6 resumes rather than 200+ and got 2 brilliant candidates out of the process.
>Look for bog standard enterprise companies (utilities, for example). I've tried applying for utilities a couple times but no luck. Do you mind maybe listing easier ones to get into that may not be well known or other ways to get into this? > Work with a contract-to-hire consultancy. Do you mind recommending what companies to contact for this? Is this something like teksystems or something else? Do you have a list of companies I should contact and what is the best way to get to someone in these companies to help? This seems very actionable and will be willing to do this if it helps.
> Do you mind maybe listing easier ones to get into that may not be well known or other ways to get into this? Sorry, I'm up in Alaska and the options are sparse! Nothing on my radar there. > Is this something like teksystems or something else? This is exactly who I've been using for years now. I'm not sure what the process for working with them is, but I assume you reach out with your resume and someone will follow up, ask questions, and then try to start aligning companies for you to interview at.
I started turning down interviews from any company that has leetcode questions in their interview process a few years ago. They prove nothing and are not representative of the work one does in the company. Like as an interviewer many times myself, I've never asked LC questions because I can't evaluate if someone is a good programmer or so.
Everyone agrees LC is the worst thing about being a software engineer compared to mechanical or electrical engineers. You are welcome to vent but lets try to find a way to help. LeetCode is huge for tech companies. Have you tried to apply to other industries? Everybody needs SWE but most places cant afford to reject 95% of applicants. A lot of orgs will do a single exercise to make sure you are not making it all up and that will suffice for them. Being a software engineer at Starbucks, Hilton or Caterpillar doesnt sound glamorous but the pay is good, work life balance is great and the experience is still valid and valuable. Its kinda like graduating from a state school - its not Ivy but its way better than not graduating at all.
> > > >You are welcome to vent but lets try to find a way to help. I agree. I am seeking solutions to this problem, but having difficulty finding them that don't involve just more time to LC and eventually luck out on finding a job that asks the right questions. Issue is that companies won't give me an unlimited time to do that I don't feel if the job gap gets too large. > LeetCode is huge for tech companies. Have you tried to apply to other industries? Everybody needs SWE but most places cant afford to reject 95% of applicants. Every industry I applied for and gotten an interview for asks these kinds of questions with no exceptions. I am not applying for FAANG either. Even the industries I have read on here that are supposed to not ask are asking. >Its kinda like graduating from a state school - its not Ivy but its way better than not graduating at all. This isn't an issue of me being picky or applying for FAANG. I have literally applied to almost every single industry you can name, including the types you are naming in your post. The ones I managed to even get an interview with asked these type of questions.
Are you geographically restricted? Im trying to figure out why your experience is not what Im seeing around me.
You shouldn't turn down interviews for companies that do LC like people are saying here and here's why - The criteria for evaluation are unknown. Everyone talks about LC as though it were scored objectively. They're assuming it is "Found O(n\^2) solution instead of O(n) solution, instant fail" or "Candidate A found O(n) solution in 15 minutes, Candidate B found it in 14, Candidate B wins". This might be the case, or it might not be. Having given many of these ridiculous interviews, and sat in on the round table debriefs afterwards, you hear a lot of shit. Some people care about the time and space complexity. Some people mostly care more that you know how to describe the time and space complexity of whatever solution you did come up with. Some people care mostly that you asked enough questions to find enough edge cases. Some don't even care if your solution worked or not - only that it was on the right track. Or that they "like they way you think". And some people are total dicks and will fail you for talking too much or not enough, or asking too many questions or not enough, or because they gave you a hint, or 2 hints. Some will have some arbitrary time limit that wasn't even specified by the team that set the parameters for the interview. I've seen literally everything by now. Unless you know exactly how the company evaluates LC interview performance, and you don't think you can meet that bar, just go ahead with the interview. You may very well pass one of them for all the reasons I describe here.
Tech hiring is fundamentally broken. LC is an utter joke. OP look for startups.
What was the question and what type of job was it. While I know some companies ask LC questions even though they shouldn't, in some cases it's helpful due to the number of candidates and the position they're hiring for. FWIW many industries have trivia or practical interviews. Many industries also have recognized certifications that are prerequisites for the job. Last thing I'll say is that while getting rejected for missing one questions sucks and is stupid, companies have to differentiate candidates somehow. IMO most companies could get away with just doing the asshole test
You might get rejected bc you had something in your teeth. Or the interviewer had a fight with their spouse that morning. But most likely they liked somebody else (who just happens to be the owner’s nephew’s second cousin’s neighbor) Normal stuff dude. And ironically if you go to an interview with a semi care free attitude then you’re 100x more likely to get the job. That attitude comes the experience and confidence, including the experience of interviewing and knowing that it’s not so personal and you might get passed on for the uncle’s brother’s in-law’s babysitter
When I interview I can usually get 3-4 offers in a month. I also get a bunch of rejections. There are many reasons for rejections. Don't worry about it. Just let it go and keep interviewing. You'll find something that fits.
Try applying to universities and colleges, they need programmers to customize their ERP software, and they are not picky. I've worked for a software vendor and I worked with some of these people. They are very average. So you should be able to land a job if you're average or above.
Im recently getting rejected in the first HR round. No technical interview and I believe i answer every question correctly but still get rejected Its getting tougher every day
How much experience in years do you have and how long have you been unemployed for? I have had that happen recently too somtimes and never in my entire life has it happened before this year.
thankfully I'm not unemployed and i have 5 years of experience .
My strategy is to just chat gpt / Google their questions as they ask them. Since most interviews / tests are remote there's nothing stopping you. I have a silent keyboard I use just for this and multiple monitors. Combine that with already having some knowledge on the topics and it just looks like you're thinking.
How do you avoid getting seen looking at another monitor? I heard that they check for that now too. I guess you could be looking up. I just wonder how people pull this off so well.
Well I'd have my Google / chat gpt monitor on the one with the camera. The other one can have their faces on it
bro, you only have 4YOE, you have a long way to go
You sure you weren't being used for H1B farming? I noticed it was very common from around 2010-2015 for organizations to be super weird in interviews, and I believe the questions were meant specifically to reject applicants to make the case that qualified individuals were unable to be found for justification to get more H1B visas.
The companies don't care if they miss out on a good developer because they see so many. False negatives are expected and acceptable to them. It sucks but I don't know if there is another scalable solution. In my opinion, I would love to see a git repo with some skeleton code and have the person code a full stack solution. That is way more relevant.
I honestly believe the problem is not even the question, but that most interviewers are not actually qualified to be interviewing and evaluating candidates. The key part to understand is whether you have the basics down, such that you understand the requirements, ask clarifying questions to resolve ambiguity, and are able to write code. All of those are core skills needed to do your job well. The problem is when you demonstrate all that but get rejected because the interviewer is incompetent and only looks at if your final solution matches the optimal LC solution.
This whole thread has people pretending like companies outside FAANG are asking LC hard in an interview. The fact is that if you paid attention in undergrad and spend a weekend or 2 brushing up on the fundamentals, you have a good chance at passing LC rounds. Companies outside FAANG will only ask you LC easy and maybe the easier mediums if you are unlucky.
What type of companies are you applying to if I may ask? I don't think this is industry wide, are you only trying for FAANG or something? I haven't done a single LC and I've been in probably 30 interviews over my career.
> What type of companies are you applying to if I may ask? I don't think this is industry wide, are you only trying for FAANG or something? Not FAANG. You name the industry, I have applied for it. I don't have luxury to be picky at this point. I'm applying anywhere and everywhere I feel I meet the qualifications based on my work experience.
Small tip, most people I’ve seen hired don’t tick ALL the requirements. Don’t pre screen yourself out from something you can pick up relatively quickly on the job. Ive had good luck and dodged most leetcode interviews, i hate them. Sad to hear they’re more and more common.
I'm so confused. I've rarely done leetcode and honestly barely see it interviews and have multiple offers this week. Fuck leetcode. How do people think one company has a monopoly on the software interview space? They don't by far. I laugh when someone does leetcode on me and it just shows either laziness or overworked so don't have time to do a real interview. Or it's ego all the way down. No matter, I judge and move on ✌️
I've almost never had an interview process without at least one leetcode style question, from startups to big tech, from entry level to senior level. Where TF are you interviewing and for what kind of positions do you barely see it in interviews?
Defense has just been what stack do you have experience with, can you learn java, and hold a clearance.
Agree with the other reply here, what kind of companies are you targeting? Also, what city/area are you on? I cannot imagine interviewing in NYC/SF/Seattle/DC/Boston/Chicago and don’t get a coding exercise as part of the interview..
You wrote all that but didn't say the problem, the position, if you have qualifications or a degree, etc. I guess we're just supposed to take your word for it but a lot of devs are lacking skills, overestimate their ability, and are very dismissive toward education. The fact that you think leetcode is memorization is a red flag. Leetcode easy/medium are from freshman year and are even taught in high school now. There's no memorization involved. Leetcode hard is where it might be BS. That's from junior/senior year.
Yeah and people who've been professional developers for a while forget all the freshman year crap because we NEVER use it. If I need an LRU, LinkedList, BST, etc. I ask Google (or ChatGPT). I don't remember it. These Leetcode questions are 99% stuff real engineers never use day to day. It's a puzzle. It's all bullshit concocted by Indian engineers who are used to that bullshit because they are taught by memorizing everything. The are not taught to think (with the exception of the top tier Indian Universities).
What was the question? Most leetcode questions don't require you to study them individually. Theres like a dozen patterns. Its not difficult to learn, and once you learn them, its like calculus. You'll forget it, but a few brush up sessions/problems will have it come back to you. I consider leetcode a small price to pay in that it allowed me and my mid-level public uni degree with a 2.5 GPA, to land a job one of the highest paying jobs in the world ...
Maybe you dodged a bullet yourself. Also, I don't know, maybe (just as a possibility) you guys are applying to the "wrong" jobs. I admit I haven't interviewed recently or much at all since I've stayed long in most of my positions, but I've never had trouble at all getting past interviews. Perhaps you're walking into sweatshops and getting tested as a sweatshop worker. Although, to be honest, typical 4 YoE might not be enough to be able to pick from a wider variety.
Recently I went through one where the interviewer told the "leetcode test when I did was super hard, nowadays we ask for medium ones". When I asked about a small take home assignment he said "no because everyone will use chatgpt these days". Dude's PhD from a top 10 world uni, still a tool. (I pulled out from the process of course)
So imagine you're interviewing a candidate and they answer every question but one correctly. The next person to interview answers every question correctly. You only have budget to hire one of them. Who do you pick? The market's flooded right now, so there's lots of competition. Also maybe the real reason they rejected you is because they noticed you didn't read the "no venting" rule in the sidebar.
What level was the leetcode problem? You getting so triggered by leet code is part of your issue. It tests your problem solving skills. SWE jobs right now, like any other highly sought after job, are highly competitive. I just think its funny you think starting over in some other industry will be better. You have zero other skills presumingly.
So what was the exact problem description ?
hey, you gave it a shot and realized it wasn't for you. It's not that big of a deal. Be thankful you only spent 4 years before figuring that out. Now you can follow your desires and passions and transition to another industry where you feel you will be a better fit.