[mrg3_2013]

I continue to get puzzled with leetcode type things. Will coding exercises like this become obsolete someday or will the old guards continue to push for such things to be used during interviews? Today coding Copilots can easily replace leetcode "winners"

[richardw]

It replaced “did you go to a top university” and “do you know our exact stack and tools” as the top hiring practice. Now anyone can compete for the same jobs from anywhere in the world. It’s a leveller, in my mind.

I applied to Atlassian as a 50 year old from South Africa who has very broad and deep experience but has never worked in big tech. Failed at the last interview (of 5) but I found the process and feedback very fair and much better than others I’ve seen elsewhere. The focus was on collaboration and communication and not being a jerk, along with the problems to be solved. I enjoyed it.

[madamelic]

It's a cyclical problem.

The people / companies using it to hire will tend to hire people who studied leetcode.

The companies that don't use leetcode / don't use it as a strong signal will continue not using it.

In my opinion, leetcode is a poor signal if used as a binary decision ("were they right or wrong?"). The more important thing is communication and how they worked through the problem. I've heard this multiple places and I absolutely agree: attitude over aptitude. You can teach knowledge, you can't teach attitude or ability to problem solve.

The companies that use them as a strong signal are the ones that will be absolutely demolished in engineering because they are on a fast track for a staff full of rote memorization rather than strong creative problem solving. They'll be handicapped when it comes to solving problems that aren't covered by leetcode because no one there bothered to learn it.

[boshalfoshal]

> The companies that use them as a strong signal are the ones that will be absolutely demolished in engineering because they are on a fast track for a staff full of rote memorization rather than strong creative problem solving.

What metric are you using to measure this? I think its a positive correlation at best as far as good business outcomes are concerned, and maybe uncorrelated at worst. Google and Meta have been known to ask contrived puzzle questions for years, even before Leetcode (and Meta now is infamous for having a high standard for Leetcode interviews), and I do not see Engineering being "demolished" here, as far as results are concerned.

What people don't realize is that Leetcode selects for generally positive traits, no matter how its solved. In my mind, here are things LC selects for:

1. Actual innate skill. If someone never practiced leetcode before but can solve an arbitrary new coding question, they probably have a pretty decent aptitude for problem solving.

2. Determination. If someone practiced leetcode for hours a day just to pass an interview, thats commendable. Does it really matter that they don't "know" the problems if they studied hard and passed? They might be more likely to work hard on the job given the right rewards.

Leetcode style interviewes were basically initially created as a thinly veiled aptitude test, and in theory they are still good at that. If you _can't_ solve an easy to medium leetcode question then what does that say about you, assuming it basically is the inverse of the two singals above?

[dr_dshiv]

> I've heard this multiple places and I absolutely agree: attitude over aptitude. You can teach knowledge, you can't teach attitude or ability to problem solve.

Seems like society should try to figure this out.. if attitude is so important, why can’t we cultivate it systematically?

[saddd]

It's become the software industry's equivalent of standardized testing.

[downWidOutaFite]

If candidates know going in that it's a leetcode interview it filters for "do you want to work here so much that you'll spend a month or two drilling on these exercises". Which can be a useful filter if there are thousands of qualified applicants.

[DelightOne]

The problem starts when its a new problem.

[mrg3_2013]

Not sure what you meant. Leetcode type things solves a problem of past. Future will be copilots doing lot of grunt coding work and human value add would be instructing copilots the right way, bringing broader contextual information. Solving binary search tree problems during interviews will eventually go away (once old guards go away)