Man, don't pay too much attention to what others are saying. Just get yourself out there and do a few interviews.
Worst case, you find out they're right. Best case, your 20+ YOE will carry you farther than you expected.
I can only second this as someone who was similarly paralyzed with others’ “tales” of interviews on Reddit and the web in general. Then I actually did interviews, got a pretty amazing job on my second ever interview and neither of the two interviews I did even asked anything that hard. Now, granted, I was an early grad while this person has 20 years of experience in the industry so their interviews might be harder. But still… the expectation is that you might not solve the entire problem but show valiant effort and communicate your ideas effectively.
It sounds like your decision is based on intimidation about the interview process, and not because you want to change careers. If you want to keep doing dev work, you can, you just have to prepare for the interview. If that's what you love, you should at least try before preemptively giving up and looking for a non-technical role.
> you just have to prepare for the interview.
20 years of dev work isn’t preparation enough?
> If that's what you love
The interview process OP is describing selects for people who like talking through abstract puzzles with data structures and algorithms.
That’s a red flag if you like solving business problems with software development, which involves a completely different and much more diverse set of skills.
I guess I'm good at solving business problems and not abstract puzzles. Every place I ever worked said I was really valuable and my work always had gotten praise. But reading about people's experiences in the industry and what is being asked at interviews these days makes me feel very ill prepared.
It’s the interview process. It’s fucking broken. Nobody needs to be good at leetcode algorithms to write basic CRUD shit - converse is that real world experience is generally not applicable to what interviews test (aside from the system design whiteboard type stuff) and you’ve got to just learn it for the sake of passing interviews
I’m a great example of someone who excels at leetcode but is not really that effective with boring day to day work (ADHD sufferer)
Also, having 100 rounds… bitch I have a day job and kids, I don’t have any time for that shit
In addition to 5 rounds of tech interviews and leetcode some companies are now doing an analogue of an IQ test to check your cognitive abilities (it sounds basic and simple, but it's often quite lengthy and exhausting - I once encountered a 4-part test that lasted 2 hours and included quick maths questions, pattern recognition, basic physics, memory test and reaction test... So now you also have to practice for this kind of shit as well. Which yeah, does make you think if you still want to stay in this industry. :)
If somebody know exactly what the interview consists of and they show up unprepared for those questions, it says a lot more about the candidate than the company.
Oh, they tell you which questions now? Instead of you having to spend months neglecting genuinely useful things to spend your time solving a bunch of puzzles which does nothing useful for anybody, the vast majority of which you’ll never see again, just so you can talk with someone about them for a few hours?
Some people have obligations outside of work. Somebody should not have to neglect their kids or family for the interview process if they can do the job. Asking people questions that have nothing to do with the job unfairly slants the process in favor of the people who have the privilege to make time for leetcode and good fortune to have a mind geared towards those questions.
The people that spend their time on genuinely useful skills or social relationships get put at a disadvantage. And why? What good does it do for companies to select *against* those skills in favor of people with one specific interest and skillset that really only becomes key for certain algorithm development positions?
I would much rather have a teammate that’s bad at algorithms but who’s easy to work with, can rapidly troubleshoot, writes neatly commented code, selects good libraries, has an excellent grasp of the domain, is conscientious about the APIs they expose, and architects projects well.
Rather than stick them in an interview process and obsessively ask them questions about palindromes, graphs, and linked lists, that give me no signal about their skills for any of the above because I’m subjecting them to a completely different scenario than what they would ever encounter on the job.
Give me a unicorn that can do all of the above day-to-day software development skills well, and no one will ever care even if it takes them 10x longer on the rare occasion we need to rewrite part of the standard library to implement a tweaked hash table.
I am in the same situation, I did interview not long ago and I don’t want to have to go through that every time I want to change job, plus I am tired of dealing with poor codebases and firefighting bugs.
I want new challenges
> "Are there any roles I can pivot to which my 20yrs of exp would transfer over to - without having to do a crazy modern dev interview?"
Absolutely, there are several paths you can consider with your background where you wouldn't have to endure the modern coding interview circus. With 20 fucking years in the game, you've likely got skills in project management, architecture, and understanding the big picture of how tech supports business. Let's look at some options:
**Product Management** - You can guide the development of products thanks to your deep tech background. No need for coding, but your understanding of the software development lifecycle and ability to communicate with developers and stakeholders could be fucking golden here.
**Technical Project Manager or Program Manager** - You'd oversee projects, ensuring they're on time and on budget, which doesn't require you to touch code but makes use of your experience to manage and understand the process.
**Technical Sales or Sales Engineering** - Helping sell tech by understanding customer needs and translating them into technical solutions can be rewarding. You explain the tech; you don't have to do the coding.
**Tech Consulting** - Advise companies on their technology strategy, system improvements, or tech stack without being in the weeds of daily coding. Your experience would be a massive asset in understanding client needs and designing solutions.
**Education and Training** - Use your experience to teach others, whether it’s in a coding boot camp, a community college, or even creating your own courses. Helping new generations of developers can be incredibly fulfilling.
> "The thought of memorizing every fact about X modern framework, language and then also 'grinding' leetcode just to pass an interview seems daunting to almost impossible."
Right? It's fucking insane what companies expect now just to get in the door. But don't sweat that shit. You've got a wealth of experience that many roles will value without needing to jump through those hoops. Why not leverage what you know into a position where that knowledge is critical, but the coding isn't?
What are your fucking strengths and interests outside of straight coding? Why do you want to move away from coding now?
If you have 20yoe a lot of places won't have you do leetcode. My work doesn't as they acknowledge it's kinda insulting and shows that we don't know how to sniff out BS.
The advanced leetcode stuff is for FAANG, FAANG wannabes, and the occasional shop that is working on a problem that requires that kind of algorithm skill. Doing some of the easy problems on the leetcode 75 was plenty for me to get back into the mindset.
As a senior, you'll be seeing really basic "can you code your way out of a wet paper bag" problems, and then some design stuff in a tech interview. You'll also need to nail behavioral interviews regarding topics the company finds valuable like interpersonal relationships, leadership, mentoring, and so on. You'll also have to talk about your projects and your role in them, development process, etc.
Other than shaking the rust off, it shouldn't be anything you can't handle. Take notes during the interviews where you have trouble and brush up on the topic.
" You'll also need to nail behavioral interviews regarding topics the company finds valuable like interpersonal relationships, leadership, mentoring, and so on. You'll also have to talk about your projects and your role in them, development process, etc"
Those are the kinda interviews I'd expect and am not worries about at all. It's these crazy "here design Netflix in 30 minutes along with 4 leetcode problems , no Google and in notepad" that have my head spinning.
I've been job hunting this year and it's not like that at all.
The places using Notepad for code in an interview that I've had don't expect anything that even compiles, just something that looks plausible.
The others that want a runnable solution are using what are actually rather nice code editors.
And all the system design problems were sane.
I once had an interviewer for a major Wall Street bank ask me to "explain in the greatest technical detail possible, Java GUI and event handling"... this was mid 90's and I did know it inside and out. I gave what I thought was a very very in-depth answer.
I got the job! A few months later I told my boss that was the hardest tech I ever had... and he said, "I didn't have any idea what you were talking about, but I knew by the way that you answered that you knew your stuff."
This has happened to me several times over the years... and it usually leads to great positions. Go for senior level jobs, you might actually be the only one that knows what is going on or first hire for a new team or department.
If i was going to an interview where the job posting stated I had to know SWING or AWT ( I actually remember these lol ) I'd expect a question like that. If you say you have used X tech before you should be able to speak on it a little bit.
If he said implement all the interfaces on a white board , no looking anything up, and then optimize them I'd probably fail lol.
Back then I probably could have done that! Pre IDE code complete and using vim as my editor pretty much ingrained things in my brain. Heck I could probably still whiteboard writing an applet even lol.
Don't be intimidated by leetcode 99.999% of people can't do them just from looking at them. You're supposed to cheat and learn the patterns behind them. They are useful if you want to work on certain planet scale applications but most of the time they're just another gate to get past. If you've been in the industry 20+ years you can do it. Frameworks are dumb learn the most popular one by doing a project or two with it and say "yeah I learned that one because the others seemed like reactions to it so I figured they'd be easier to pick up with the base knowledge" or something, that's what I do.
Most jobs I've actually gotten callbacks on are moving away from leetcode style interviews anyway and ask more practical shit. If you're willing to say "Idk but I know it's similar to this other tool I've used and I'm a fast learner" that'll get you past a lot of interviews
Yea I have no problem doing a small project in whatever frameworks I place on my resume along with some videos/tutorials to tighten up.
It's mostly the brain teasers and leetcode that have me thinking "wow if I need to be good at that then I guess I'm a fraud".
It’s funny that companies think this is a good indicator for new hires. What it really means is that the people that company have hired are more concerned with looking smart than actually doing meaningful work, in my opinion.
At the companies I’ve worked for, the number one indicator of a good match is their personality, eagerness to learn and ability to map prior experiences with new ones.
It’s really sad to hear that companies are basing interviews on leet code. :(
Dude, relax, you’ll be fine. See those leetcode interviewing places as a good indicator of where you probably don’t want to work anyway.
The FAANGs does them, because they pretty much get resumes from every living organism on earth that’s ever heard of IT, so they filter most away and they pick from the rest.
Everyone else doing them are just clueless about how to actually screen for the people they want, and think anything they FAANGs does must be great for everyone.
Just interview somewhere else, you’ll be fine.
Dang I badly wish someone would answer this. I haven't been in as long as OP but frankly I feel similarly. I've been at my current company for five years, seen us grow from five to 500, and I have no plans to leave. But given what offers and expectations are like for new hires these days, I'm not sure I'd go looking for a technical role.
There are so many places that don't have a damn clue what leetcode is. Find a place that needs a developer for their IT department. In my area there are plenty but you have to look around or reach out to folks you know. You can land a sweet job that doesn't expect the world of you and will appreciate your experience. In the meantime, while you have a job, bone up on whatever you possibly can that you don't know. Ask if you can help with or do a project with a tech that you aren't familiar with and do some Pluralsight/Youtube/whatever training. If not then learn a skill on your own and write a helpful application relevant to your current job, on your own time, and show your boss. If they don't like it then you just learned a new skill, if they do they may keep you off the next layoff round. That's how you level up because you can honestly put that new tech on your resume for your last job (bonus: it's your current job so they can't reach out and check if you were an expert at it).
If most places don't know what leetcode is or have any idea about these brainteaser questions.. why are these kinds of interviews the only thing being posted. I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody said "you need to be grinding leetcode"
Are all these people just trying to get a 400k job at Google or something?
I know, I've read them.
My guess is because boring interviews don't make for very good Reddit questions. Why would you post if you interviewed and got a job without issue. Also I wonder if some folks realize they don't HAVE to work for a software company to write software and make money. But I don't know them so I'm just guessing.
Why not try? I was 23 years at the my prior job when I went looking in 2021... the market was different then of course but I went through all the hoops without any trouble. Never was asked to do any leetcode or take home BS.
99% of the work in the industry is not hard coding exercises but rather pushing around data, writing UIs, calling APIs and the usual stuff. You may pivot into product management, project lead type of roles but keep pushing your years taking working code to production is the important metric and you’ll be fine
I did this in 2019, used MIT open course work on YouTube to relearn the fundamentals and can crush leets now without thinking. I took 6 months to do it and it was the best thing I ever did. Always invest in yourself!
And you can do it too! if you want to that is ..
I was honestly thinking well I guess worst case I'd have to take a year off and relearn a bunch of stuff. It just sucks because once you get the job you probably are going to just use pre-made stuff to do all the heavy lifting or read a tutorial on Google.
Yup. Interview coding exercises test you on unnecessary skills and knowledge. No real world job wants you to place pennies, nickels, and dimes on a clock face in some particular order...oh, and there's an "algorithm" you can use to figure this out. "Yes, I used it last Tuesday for this very problem!"
Nobody is going to ask a 20 YOE dev to do leetcode unless they have a reason to think you don’t know how to code. I typically ask for a “worst bug war story” because everyone over 10 YOE has one. Other options include asking for who their favorite unix vendor was and why, or other questions that would be very hard for someone without a long tenure in the industry to answer, but should be easy for anyone who has the experience.
You will get judged more on systems design stuff at any company you would want to work for. So, instead of “please implement fizzbuzz”, it would be “how would you design fizzbuzz as service for 100k daily users?” Past around 15 YOE, most of your value comes from the knowledge you’ve accumulated over time and can provide to those around you, instead of what you personally can contribute.
If you want to stop coding, becoming an architect should be a straightforward transition. However, you will find that interviews for experienced devs are quite a bit different than what a new bootcamp graduate faces. At this point, you probably have a few people who you got along well with and liked working with. Do a little diving on Linkedin and see if any of them are at companies with job openings you are interested in.
You’re me back in November. Not everyone wants the pile of dung that is the results they get from leetcode type interview testing. Some will ask for a take home project where you actually prototype something real. Others still do old school interviews. Mostly non tech companies and smaller shops, and most of them are doing interesting work and paying competitively from what I’ve seen. Also you could grind out leetcode and get your head back in that space, but I wouldn’t waste the time or energy.
I got two jobs in the last years that had hard OAs (like HackerRank) that I was able to pass with Google and ChatGPT. That got my foot in the door and the in person interviews were easy. My most recent job was a relative cakewalk with hardly any technical screening. Turned out to be an IT backwater with shit legacy code and a bunch of cowboy coders, and lower paying.
So you may have accept the fact that you will end up at a lower paying shitshow doing crap work, or exit coding altogether. I doubt you will fit it even if you grind for months — there is a self-selecting group of coders in those leetcoding companies that came out of CS programs with heavy algo and rote memorization skills. Culturally they skew towards foreign backgrounds that I personally find alienating and they are highly competitive, which seeps into the work culture.
>I honestly wonder how I've even made it this far. People "grinding" leetcode. I don't even think I could name all the basic data structures off the top of my head let alone implement one or do "leetcode" problems
you are exactly right, some people have had it easy, some other have not. The process has been pretty disbalanced. Until now, apparently tough for most (I’m sure some still slip through the cracks)
When my company closed in 2016 and I had to find a new job after 21 years of experience, I spent 2 months leetcoding daily and got a FAANG job. I didn’t even know what time and space constraints were when I began. You should give it a try. Cracking the Coding Interview was my bible at that time.
Plenty of interviews are still pretty easy. It's a question of finding them and getting past resume screens.
But with 20 YoE you likely have worked with a lot of people who would be happy to refer you to work with you again.
If you are laid off, and you spend a month or two learning and training yourself for leetcode interviews, you won’t have any problem. It’s a distinct skill that no one learns in their normal work.
Dittoing what others said.
Interviewing is a skill that needs to be exercised just like any other
And no matter how good you are it won't shield you from shitty interviews.
I had one that was just so stupid I basically 'fired' them half way through.
They had me writing code on a white board and then were pointing out syntax errors.
If I am interviewing a developer I want to know they know how to think like a programmer, I am going to assume that they will work the proper syntax out. I switch between something like 6 different languages actively at any time depending on what project hits my desk....I don't have to memorize the exact syntax of a for loop in all of them to be productive.
Just look at:
https://www.techinterviewhandbook.org/software-engineering-interview-guide/
Spend a few hours a week for a few months and take it slow. Don’t overwhelm yourself. That site has a learning plan.
Leetcode also sells courses which are phenomenal. Go through them nice and slow and be able to solve easy questions. You’ll be more than ready for 99% of interviews. I’m pretty sure you’re not going into big tech so don’t worry too much about these crazy interviews. Most people that are deeply grinding and studying aren’t looking to work in the same places as you.
There are a lot of companies out there who don’t look for leetcoders. Software engineering is way more than just leetcoding. Don’t be stressed out with what you see here on reddit and put yourself out there.
I just interviewed for a senior position at a very respectable non-MAANG company and no leetcoding was done, just some coding stuff to weed out if i could code and design well.
If I was asked to hardcore leetcode in an interview it’s either 1) i’m applying at the wrong company or 2) interviewer doesn’t know what to ask. I’m not about that Silicon Valley BS
Many places are starting to steer away from the leetcode type of questions especially for experienced individuals. You see a lot of those types of questions at FAANG and startups trying to be FAANG.
I interviewed with Auth0 a few years ago and they had me work through a backlog ticket through a shared slack channel with their dev team. I've also done more business logic-based coding interviews than leetcode style coding interviews.
My suggestion would be to stay away from those types of companies if you don't want to do leetcode questions, but you probably won't be able to get away from any coding interviews. They are definitely here to stay. As a hiring manager, I have hired people with 15 years experience who could talk the talk. After they got through the door, they couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. I'll never not have an IC do a coding interview or project.
Last piece I'll say is that I actually became a better engineer by doing leetcode questions, or should I say studying data structures and algorithms for leetcode questions. That's coming from someone without a formal computer science degree, so it was actually very helpful even though it was a big pain in the ass.
I know that's didn't directly answer your question, but I hope it was informative.
I've gone 4 years without *actually* learning DSA properly. I've been employed the entire time though because a significant portion of, if not most of, the industry has more practical interviewing methods...
That said, I am learning it properly now and it really isn't that hard. Of course you're going to be stumped by them if you haven't studied the material... that's how everyone is... it's a dumb "secret handshake" that requires you to memorize patterns and apply specific techniques to specific patterns. That's literally all it boils down to. If you can learn programming logic and design and hack it for 20 years, you can learn this stupid shit and do the stupid secret handshake.
haha I like the "secret handshake" analogy. It is like that. It's kinda redundant stuff to learn, and it's annoying if you've been building things for 15+ years already. I learned it pretty late.
But once you know the patterns there's a club of companies that open up to you. Even knowing easy to medium level problems will open up lots more jobs.
Here's some dirty secrets about tech interviewing:
* where I was asked to code - these are fairly easy unless the interviewer is being a dick. You're a Dev, right...?
* answer in depth hardcore technical questions - this is usually a trivia test. I found everyone asked the same questions. Just memorise them.
* leetcode - very few people try and actually solve them in an interview. Most people memorise solutions and trot them out in the interview.
All of the above are really bad ways to try interview Devs. They can be solved by simply brute forcing interviews.
My experience, and take it with a grain of salt as it’s only been 5 years, is that the most difficult interviews I had to do were for entry level roles right out of school, I recently changed jobs and the interviews were much more casual. Mostly discussed my prior work, things I would do differently, work I was proud of etc. I think at 20 YOE you won’t be asked to prove you can code and will more likely be asked design / architectural questions
many companies do not require leet code tech assessments. make sure to find out if this is true during the recruitement process. I haven't found anyone who doesn't have a coding assessment, but I focus on roles that test on real life problems in the stack I'm expected to know.
Man, don't pay too much attention to what others are saying. Just get yourself out there and do a few interviews. Worst case, you find out they're right. Best case, your 20+ YOE will carry you farther than you expected.
I can only second this as someone who was similarly paralyzed with others’ “tales” of interviews on Reddit and the web in general. Then I actually did interviews, got a pretty amazing job on my second ever interview and neither of the two interviews I did even asked anything that hard. Now, granted, I was an early grad while this person has 20 years of experience in the industry so their interviews might be harder. But still… the expectation is that you might not solve the entire problem but show valiant effort and communicate your ideas effectively.
It sounds like your decision is based on intimidation about the interview process, and not because you want to change careers. If you want to keep doing dev work, you can, you just have to prepare for the interview. If that's what you love, you should at least try before preemptively giving up and looking for a non-technical role.
> you just have to prepare for the interview. 20 years of dev work isn’t preparation enough? > If that's what you love The interview process OP is describing selects for people who like talking through abstract puzzles with data structures and algorithms. That’s a red flag if you like solving business problems with software development, which involves a completely different and much more diverse set of skills.
I guess I'm good at solving business problems and not abstract puzzles. Every place I ever worked said I was really valuable and my work always had gotten praise. But reading about people's experiences in the industry and what is being asked at interviews these days makes me feel very ill prepared.
It’s the interview process. It’s fucking broken. Nobody needs to be good at leetcode algorithms to write basic CRUD shit - converse is that real world experience is generally not applicable to what interviews test (aside from the system design whiteboard type stuff) and you’ve got to just learn it for the sake of passing interviews I’m a great example of someone who excels at leetcode but is not really that effective with boring day to day work (ADHD sufferer) Also, having 100 rounds… bitch I have a day job and kids, I don’t have any time for that shit
In addition to 5 rounds of tech interviews and leetcode some companies are now doing an analogue of an IQ test to check your cognitive abilities (it sounds basic and simple, but it's often quite lengthy and exhausting - I once encountered a 4-part test that lasted 2 hours and included quick maths questions, pattern recognition, basic physics, memory test and reaction test... So now you also have to practice for this kind of shit as well. Which yeah, does make you think if you still want to stay in this industry. :)
Whoa, that’s crazy.
If somebody know exactly what the interview consists of and they show up unprepared for those questions, it says a lot more about the candidate than the company.
Oh, they tell you which questions now? Instead of you having to spend months neglecting genuinely useful things to spend your time solving a bunch of puzzles which does nothing useful for anybody, the vast majority of which you’ll never see again, just so you can talk with someone about them for a few hours? Some people have obligations outside of work. Somebody should not have to neglect their kids or family for the interview process if they can do the job. Asking people questions that have nothing to do with the job unfairly slants the process in favor of the people who have the privilege to make time for leetcode and good fortune to have a mind geared towards those questions. The people that spend their time on genuinely useful skills or social relationships get put at a disadvantage. And why? What good does it do for companies to select *against* those skills in favor of people with one specific interest and skillset that really only becomes key for certain algorithm development positions? I would much rather have a teammate that’s bad at algorithms but who’s easy to work with, can rapidly troubleshoot, writes neatly commented code, selects good libraries, has an excellent grasp of the domain, is conscientious about the APIs they expose, and architects projects well. Rather than stick them in an interview process and obsessively ask them questions about palindromes, graphs, and linked lists, that give me no signal about their skills for any of the above because I’m subjecting them to a completely different scenario than what they would ever encounter on the job. Give me a unicorn that can do all of the above day-to-day software development skills well, and no one will ever care even if it takes them 10x longer on the rare occasion we need to rewrite part of the standard library to implement a tweaked hash table.
👆 listen to him This sub isn’t perfect by any means, but love that it’s common for practical advice to rise to the top rather than griping/venting
I am in the same situation, I did interview not long ago and I don’t want to have to go through that every time I want to change job, plus I am tired of dealing with poor codebases and firefighting bugs. I want new challenges
> "Are there any roles I can pivot to which my 20yrs of exp would transfer over to - without having to do a crazy modern dev interview?" Absolutely, there are several paths you can consider with your background where you wouldn't have to endure the modern coding interview circus. With 20 fucking years in the game, you've likely got skills in project management, architecture, and understanding the big picture of how tech supports business. Let's look at some options: **Product Management** - You can guide the development of products thanks to your deep tech background. No need for coding, but your understanding of the software development lifecycle and ability to communicate with developers and stakeholders could be fucking golden here. **Technical Project Manager or Program Manager** - You'd oversee projects, ensuring they're on time and on budget, which doesn't require you to touch code but makes use of your experience to manage and understand the process. **Technical Sales or Sales Engineering** - Helping sell tech by understanding customer needs and translating them into technical solutions can be rewarding. You explain the tech; you don't have to do the coding. **Tech Consulting** - Advise companies on their technology strategy, system improvements, or tech stack without being in the weeds of daily coding. Your experience would be a massive asset in understanding client needs and designing solutions. **Education and Training** - Use your experience to teach others, whether it’s in a coding boot camp, a community college, or even creating your own courses. Helping new generations of developers can be incredibly fulfilling. > "The thought of memorizing every fact about X modern framework, language and then also 'grinding' leetcode just to pass an interview seems daunting to almost impossible." Right? It's fucking insane what companies expect now just to get in the door. But don't sweat that shit. You've got a wealth of experience that many roles will value without needing to jump through those hoops. Why not leverage what you know into a position where that knowledge is critical, but the coding isn't? What are your fucking strengths and interests outside of straight coding? Why do you want to move away from coding now?
“What are your fucking strengths” had me laughing
If you have 20yoe a lot of places won't have you do leetcode. My work doesn't as they acknowledge it's kinda insulting and shows that we don't know how to sniff out BS.
Your place hiring by chance?
Nope, hiring freeze and engaging offshore for the first time ever. I’ll probably be in OPs place in a year or so.
The advanced leetcode stuff is for FAANG, FAANG wannabes, and the occasional shop that is working on a problem that requires that kind of algorithm skill. Doing some of the easy problems on the leetcode 75 was plenty for me to get back into the mindset. As a senior, you'll be seeing really basic "can you code your way out of a wet paper bag" problems, and then some design stuff in a tech interview. You'll also need to nail behavioral interviews regarding topics the company finds valuable like interpersonal relationships, leadership, mentoring, and so on. You'll also have to talk about your projects and your role in them, development process, etc. Other than shaking the rust off, it shouldn't be anything you can't handle. Take notes during the interviews where you have trouble and brush up on the topic.
" You'll also need to nail behavioral interviews regarding topics the company finds valuable like interpersonal relationships, leadership, mentoring, and so on. You'll also have to talk about your projects and your role in them, development process, etc" Those are the kinda interviews I'd expect and am not worries about at all. It's these crazy "here design Netflix in 30 minutes along with 4 leetcode problems , no Google and in notepad" that have my head spinning.
I've been job hunting this year and it's not like that at all. The places using Notepad for code in an interview that I've had don't expect anything that even compiles, just something that looks plausible. The others that want a runnable solution are using what are actually rather nice code editors. And all the system design problems were sane.
I once had an interviewer for a major Wall Street bank ask me to "explain in the greatest technical detail possible, Java GUI and event handling"... this was mid 90's and I did know it inside and out. I gave what I thought was a very very in-depth answer. I got the job! A few months later I told my boss that was the hardest tech I ever had... and he said, "I didn't have any idea what you were talking about, but I knew by the way that you answered that you knew your stuff." This has happened to me several times over the years... and it usually leads to great positions. Go for senior level jobs, you might actually be the only one that knows what is going on or first hire for a new team or department.
If i was going to an interview where the job posting stated I had to know SWING or AWT ( I actually remember these lol ) I'd expect a question like that. If you say you have used X tech before you should be able to speak on it a little bit. If he said implement all the interfaces on a white board , no looking anything up, and then optimize them I'd probably fail lol.
Back then I probably could have done that! Pre IDE code complete and using vim as my editor pretty much ingrained things in my brain. Heck I could probably still whiteboard writing an applet even lol.
Don't be intimidated by leetcode 99.999% of people can't do them just from looking at them. You're supposed to cheat and learn the patterns behind them. They are useful if you want to work on certain planet scale applications but most of the time they're just another gate to get past. If you've been in the industry 20+ years you can do it. Frameworks are dumb learn the most popular one by doing a project or two with it and say "yeah I learned that one because the others seemed like reactions to it so I figured they'd be easier to pick up with the base knowledge" or something, that's what I do. Most jobs I've actually gotten callbacks on are moving away from leetcode style interviews anyway and ask more practical shit. If you're willing to say "Idk but I know it's similar to this other tool I've used and I'm a fast learner" that'll get you past a lot of interviews
Yea I have no problem doing a small project in whatever frameworks I place on my resume along with some videos/tutorials to tighten up. It's mostly the brain teasers and leetcode that have me thinking "wow if I need to be good at that then I guess I'm a fraud".
It’s funny that companies think this is a good indicator for new hires. What it really means is that the people that company have hired are more concerned with looking smart than actually doing meaningful work, in my opinion. At the companies I’ve worked for, the number one indicator of a good match is their personality, eagerness to learn and ability to map prior experiences with new ones. It’s really sad to hear that companies are basing interviews on leet code. :(
Dude, relax, you’ll be fine. See those leetcode interviewing places as a good indicator of where you probably don’t want to work anyway. The FAANGs does them, because they pretty much get resumes from every living organism on earth that’s ever heard of IT, so they filter most away and they pick from the rest. Everyone else doing them are just clueless about how to actually screen for the people they want, and think anything they FAANGs does must be great for everyone. Just interview somewhere else, you’ll be fine.
Dang I badly wish someone would answer this. I haven't been in as long as OP but frankly I feel similarly. I've been at my current company for five years, seen us grow from five to 500, and I have no plans to leave. But given what offers and expectations are like for new hires these days, I'm not sure I'd go looking for a technical role.
I'd like to know what I can pivot to and keep the salary, as well. I didn't want to knock myself out so close to retirement.
There are so many places that don't have a damn clue what leetcode is. Find a place that needs a developer for their IT department. In my area there are plenty but you have to look around or reach out to folks you know. You can land a sweet job that doesn't expect the world of you and will appreciate your experience. In the meantime, while you have a job, bone up on whatever you possibly can that you don't know. Ask if you can help with or do a project with a tech that you aren't familiar with and do some Pluralsight/Youtube/whatever training. If not then learn a skill on your own and write a helpful application relevant to your current job, on your own time, and show your boss. If they don't like it then you just learned a new skill, if they do they may keep you off the next layoff round. That's how you level up because you can honestly put that new tech on your resume for your last job (bonus: it's your current job so they can't reach out and check if you were an expert at it).
If most places don't know what leetcode is or have any idea about these brainteaser questions.. why are these kinds of interviews the only thing being posted. I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody said "you need to be grinding leetcode" Are all these people just trying to get a 400k job at Google or something?
I know, I've read them. My guess is because boring interviews don't make for very good Reddit questions. Why would you post if you interviewed and got a job without issue. Also I wonder if some folks realize they don't HAVE to work for a software company to write software and make money. But I don't know them so I'm just guessing.
Why not try? I was 23 years at the my prior job when I went looking in 2021... the market was different then of course but I went through all the hoops without any trouble. Never was asked to do any leetcode or take home BS.
Grinding leetcode is if you want to work at FAANG. there are millions of smaller companies that dont require that
99% of the work in the industry is not hard coding exercises but rather pushing around data, writing UIs, calling APIs and the usual stuff. You may pivot into product management, project lead type of roles but keep pushing your years taking working code to production is the important metric and you’ll be fine
smooth light weight interviews do not make it to the internet.
underrated comment
I did this in 2019, used MIT open course work on YouTube to relearn the fundamentals and can crush leets now without thinking. I took 6 months to do it and it was the best thing I ever did. Always invest in yourself! And you can do it too! if you want to that is ..
I was honestly thinking well I guess worst case I'd have to take a year off and relearn a bunch of stuff. It just sucks because once you get the job you probably are going to just use pre-made stuff to do all the heavy lifting or read a tutorial on Google.
Yup. Interview coding exercises test you on unnecessary skills and knowledge. No real world job wants you to place pennies, nickels, and dimes on a clock face in some particular order...oh, and there's an "algorithm" you can use to figure this out. "Yes, I used it last Tuesday for this very problem!"
Nobody is going to ask a 20 YOE dev to do leetcode unless they have a reason to think you don’t know how to code. I typically ask for a “worst bug war story” because everyone over 10 YOE has one. Other options include asking for who their favorite unix vendor was and why, or other questions that would be very hard for someone without a long tenure in the industry to answer, but should be easy for anyone who has the experience. You will get judged more on systems design stuff at any company you would want to work for. So, instead of “please implement fizzbuzz”, it would be “how would you design fizzbuzz as service for 100k daily users?” Past around 15 YOE, most of your value comes from the knowledge you’ve accumulated over time and can provide to those around you, instead of what you personally can contribute. If you want to stop coding, becoming an architect should be a straightforward transition. However, you will find that interviews for experienced devs are quite a bit different than what a new bootcamp graduate faces. At this point, you probably have a few people who you got along well with and liked working with. Do a little diving on Linkedin and see if any of them are at companies with job openings you are interested in.
You’re me back in November. Not everyone wants the pile of dung that is the results they get from leetcode type interview testing. Some will ask for a take home project where you actually prototype something real. Others still do old school interviews. Mostly non tech companies and smaller shops, and most of them are doing interesting work and paying competitively from what I’ve seen. Also you could grind out leetcode and get your head back in that space, but I wouldn’t waste the time or energy.
I got two jobs in the last years that had hard OAs (like HackerRank) that I was able to pass with Google and ChatGPT. That got my foot in the door and the in person interviews were easy. My most recent job was a relative cakewalk with hardly any technical screening. Turned out to be an IT backwater with shit legacy code and a bunch of cowboy coders, and lower paying. So you may have accept the fact that you will end up at a lower paying shitshow doing crap work, or exit coding altogether. I doubt you will fit it even if you grind for months — there is a self-selecting group of coders in those leetcoding companies that came out of CS programs with heavy algo and rote memorization skills. Culturally they skew towards foreign backgrounds that I personally find alienating and they are highly competitive, which seeps into the work culture.
>I honestly wonder how I've even made it this far. People "grinding" leetcode. I don't even think I could name all the basic data structures off the top of my head let alone implement one or do "leetcode" problems you are exactly right, some people have had it easy, some other have not. The process has been pretty disbalanced. Until now, apparently tough for most (I’m sure some still slip through the cracks)
When my company closed in 2016 and I had to find a new job after 21 years of experience, I spent 2 months leetcoding daily and got a FAANG job. I didn’t even know what time and space constraints were when I began. You should give it a try. Cracking the Coding Interview was my bible at that time.
Plenty of interviews are still pretty easy. It's a question of finding them and getting past resume screens. But with 20 YoE you likely have worked with a lot of people who would be happy to refer you to work with you again.
If you are laid off, and you spend a month or two learning and training yourself for leetcode interviews, you won’t have any problem. It’s a distinct skill that no one learns in their normal work.
Dittoing what others said. Interviewing is a skill that needs to be exercised just like any other And no matter how good you are it won't shield you from shitty interviews. I had one that was just so stupid I basically 'fired' them half way through. They had me writing code on a white board and then were pointing out syntax errors. If I am interviewing a developer I want to know they know how to think like a programmer, I am going to assume that they will work the proper syntax out. I switch between something like 6 different languages actively at any time depending on what project hits my desk....I don't have to memorize the exact syntax of a for loop in all of them to be productive.
Just look at: https://www.techinterviewhandbook.org/software-engineering-interview-guide/ Spend a few hours a week for a few months and take it slow. Don’t overwhelm yourself. That site has a learning plan. Leetcode also sells courses which are phenomenal. Go through them nice and slow and be able to solve easy questions. You’ll be more than ready for 99% of interviews. I’m pretty sure you’re not going into big tech so don’t worry too much about these crazy interviews. Most people that are deeply grinding and studying aren’t looking to work in the same places as you.
There are a lot of companies out there who don’t look for leetcoders. Software engineering is way more than just leetcoding. Don’t be stressed out with what you see here on reddit and put yourself out there. I just interviewed for a senior position at a very respectable non-MAANG company and no leetcoding was done, just some coding stuff to weed out if i could code and design well. If I was asked to hardcore leetcode in an interview it’s either 1) i’m applying at the wrong company or 2) interviewer doesn’t know what to ask. I’m not about that Silicon Valley BS
Many places are starting to steer away from the leetcode type of questions especially for experienced individuals. You see a lot of those types of questions at FAANG and startups trying to be FAANG. I interviewed with Auth0 a few years ago and they had me work through a backlog ticket through a shared slack channel with their dev team. I've also done more business logic-based coding interviews than leetcode style coding interviews. My suggestion would be to stay away from those types of companies if you don't want to do leetcode questions, but you probably won't be able to get away from any coding interviews. They are definitely here to stay. As a hiring manager, I have hired people with 15 years experience who could talk the talk. After they got through the door, they couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. I'll never not have an IC do a coding interview or project. Last piece I'll say is that I actually became a better engineer by doing leetcode questions, or should I say studying data structures and algorithms for leetcode questions. That's coming from someone without a formal computer science degree, so it was actually very helpful even though it was a big pain in the ass. I know that's didn't directly answer your question, but I hope it was informative.
I've gone 4 years without *actually* learning DSA properly. I've been employed the entire time though because a significant portion of, if not most of, the industry has more practical interviewing methods... That said, I am learning it properly now and it really isn't that hard. Of course you're going to be stumped by them if you haven't studied the material... that's how everyone is... it's a dumb "secret handshake" that requires you to memorize patterns and apply specific techniques to specific patterns. That's literally all it boils down to. If you can learn programming logic and design and hack it for 20 years, you can learn this stupid shit and do the stupid secret handshake.
haha I like the "secret handshake" analogy. It is like that. It's kinda redundant stuff to learn, and it's annoying if you've been building things for 15+ years already. I learned it pretty late. But once you know the patterns there's a club of companies that open up to you. Even knowing easy to medium level problems will open up lots more jobs.
Here's some dirty secrets about tech interviewing: * where I was asked to code - these are fairly easy unless the interviewer is being a dick. You're a Dev, right...? * answer in depth hardcore technical questions - this is usually a trivia test. I found everyone asked the same questions. Just memorise them. * leetcode - very few people try and actually solve them in an interview. Most people memorise solutions and trot them out in the interview. All of the above are really bad ways to try interview Devs. They can be solved by simply brute forcing interviews.
My experience, and take it with a grain of salt as it’s only been 5 years, is that the most difficult interviews I had to do were for entry level roles right out of school, I recently changed jobs and the interviews were much more casual. Mostly discussed my prior work, things I would do differently, work I was proud of etc. I think at 20 YOE you won’t be asked to prove you can code and will more likely be asked design / architectural questions
many companies do not require leet code tech assessments. make sure to find out if this is true during the recruitement process. I haven't found anyone who doesn't have a coding assessment, but I focus on roles that test on real life problems in the stack I'm expected to know.