[sawyna]

I hear you and share the sentiment (for the most part). I don't understand what's with leetcode. Granted it's not the best for way to judge the capabilities of a programmer, but then what is? A design round can be gamed as much as an algorithmic round can be. At least with leetcode, people become aware of different ways of thinking. By different ways, I don't mean different algorithms. I mean, given a base set of capabilities (algos), how to use them effectively to solve a much more diverse set of problems. This kind of pattern almost always exists in my day to day job. The constraints are limited, and I need to figure out an effective way forward.

[linguae]

It’s not Leetcode in of itself that I hate; in fact, I enjoy programming challenges such as Project Euler and Advent of Code, and I occasionally read my Knuth volumes for fun. It’s the interview process that sucks the fun out of it, where you have to compete against those who just seem to eat, sleep, and drink Leetcode. It reminds me of my high school days when I stressed out over grades and SAT scores. I understand that for highly-desirable companies there needs to be some mechanism for culling the mass number of applications they receive, but when just about every company seemingly asks difficult Leetcode questions even if the job doesn’t require sophisticated algorithms, it’s very demoralizing. I’m getting tired of monkey dancing and I’m researching alternative ways of making a living.

[sawyna]

Unfortunately that's true. I think he companies can ask interesting questions that are not in leetcode, but it's basically a game where the companies make up new questions and they get added to leetcode. I don't think any company wants to spend their employees fighting a battle that's not worth it.