I love leetcode type puzzles. I still do an occasional puzzle even though I’m not looking for work. I like the feeling of intellectual satisfaction when I come up with a solution to an interesting problem.
I think on hacker news you’re preaching to the converted - everyone here likes intellectual challenges, puzzles and technical mysteries.
I think the problem is that it’s not a great measure of real world ability on many dimensions - often you don’t have the same tools at your disposal, your body is full of adrenaline from the stress of being in an interview (which enables fight or flight and disables high level cortical thought) and lastly many of the leetcode problems are - at best - only tangentially related to the work.
I think they are not a good measure of performance at a programming job - I do however think they are a good way of measuring a candidates tolerance for stupid B.S., which I think is what some poor organisations are actually subconsciously measuring for!
The problem is that within an interview context, many times one is expected to just come up with a perfect solution within a short timeframe.
It's possible to solve these on the fly, but you're at a disadvantage compared to people who have done hundreds of these problems, pattern match to the closest leetcode problem, then immediately write the optimal solution on the board.
Comments
I love leetcode type puzzles. I still do an occasional puzzle even though I’m not looking for work. I like the feeling of intellectual satisfaction when I come up with a solution to an interesting problem.
I think on hacker news you’re preaching to the converted - everyone here likes intellectual challenges, puzzles and technical mysteries.
I think the problem is that it’s not a great measure of real world ability on many dimensions - often you don’t have the same tools at your disposal, your body is full of adrenaline from the stress of being in an interview (which enables fight or flight and disables high level cortical thought) and lastly many of the leetcode problems are - at best - only tangentially related to the work.
I think they are not a good measure of performance at a programming job - I do however think they are a good way of measuring a candidates tolerance for stupid B.S., which I think is what some poor organisations are actually subconsciously measuring for!
The problem is that within an interview context, many times one is expected to just come up with a perfect solution within a short timeframe.
It's possible to solve these on the fly, but you're at a disadvantage compared to people who have done hundreds of these problems, pattern match to the closest leetcode problem, then immediately write the optimal solution on the board.