LeetCode: The Worst Thing to Happen to Software Engineering

Should you grind LeetCode all day to get a job? Will LeetCode teach you to be a good coder? If you're tired of grinding endless coding problems and starting to hate it, this video is for you. I don’t think LeetCode is an accurate reflection of a software engineer’s daily duties and it can be misleading for job interviews.
#leetcode #softwareengineer

[@vitspenatek455]

Real life analogy of a live coding interview: "Here's a problem, I'm gonna stand here and watch you solve it in a couple of minutes, but no stress, if you don't make it fast enough, you get fired."

[@AnotherPersonStoppingBy]

This. ☝️

[@moonasha]

I've heard that some aren't so bad, and that good interviewers just want to see your problem solving process. But yeah I assume the majority are just nasty problems there to filter people.

[@luisoncpp]

Nope, interviwers are more concerned about the thinking process, rather than if you solve the problem or not.

[@Patrik6920]

@@luisoncpp definetly...

[@travispulley8899]

@@luisoncpp I'm either thinking about the people I'm talking to or thinking about solving the problem, not both. Doing both is like having one foot on a boat and the other on the dock for me.

[@opa-age]

Every company I worked for that required leetcode problems, turned out to be toxic in some way. Every company that I worked for that didn't and instead asked questions relevant to the role, ended up being much better places to work. Just my own personal experience.

[@athens31415]

Same here.

[@cumibakar10]

Most coding interviews are basic CS fundamentals. You're just hating because you're bad at basic CS.

[@ronnyperez1998]

same here

[@sick911]

Care to elaborate on the toxicity?

[@geigenunterricht8684]

@@sick911 Maybe, it has something to do with the fact, that the better the interview questions are, the deeper the understanding of your future boss is about the actual problems you will have to solve and what an efficient way to communicate is.

[@light18pl]

This is fundamentally not a problem with leetcode. If it wasn't leetcode, it would have been something else. The problem is interviewers are trying to do their job with the least amount of effort.

[@taragnor]

Sadly very true.

[@mariolix89]

True! But most of the times, interviewers at tech companies are not doing that as full time job but more of a side task. They are just trying to "optimize" the process as much as possible.

[@CaptainToadUK]

the actual way to interview is to, well, interview people. Like actual speaking and such. I've conducted hundreds of interviews and hired dozens of good quality coders relying 90% on a face-to-face interview and 10% on a simple exam-style test (using pen and paper) to make sure they're not muppets with the gift of the gab (I've met a few of them). Over-reliance on these tests is poor practice by lazy interviewers and it will come back to bite many of them.

[@mariolix89]

It surely sounds an effective process. For personal interest (since I also, need to routinely conduct interviews), may I ask what kind of questions were you asking on the pen-and-paper part?

[@CaptainToadUK]

@@mariolix89 certainly. We started with some simple design questions (what is MVC, Ajax, etc., give the pros and cons of soap Vs rest). A couple of coding questions asking for them to show it as they would production code in whichever language they were comfortable with (we were happy to retrain good Devs to c#). And some SQL questions that were not hugely difficult. The candidate was given instructions how to answer and each section was given a percentage score. The gotcha was they had 45 minutes to do an hour test, so they had to prioritise how much effort to give each section. It was as much about technical proficiency as it was time management. The point of the test was to see how they operated under pressure and to make sure they had some technical chops. The rest, actual level of competence, could be teased out in the interview. My favourite interview question: what have you worked on recently that you're proud of? The answer was always varied but it was a level of passion and intensity that I was looking for

[@kevinb1594]

The really annoying thing is that a lot of the jobs that require leetcode interview problems DONT EVEN REQUIRE THAT LEVEL/STYLE OF PROGRAMMING. If you're hiring for a front end developer position, you aren't writing these complex algos. Guarantee someone has already written a module that works 'good enough' to solve your problem faster than it would take you to sit down and write out your own. Not only that but they skip critical skills actually necessary to do the job in favor of leetcode garbage. I had team members who passed leetcode interviews but didn't know CSS for a front end developer position!!

[@BillClinton228]

It's just lazy hiring practices. Just because you're fresh out of college and can solve some algorithm problem doesnt mean you're good at working on large scale corporate software projects. But its much easier to let an automated program "determine" the technical level of a candidate and disqualify you than have a lead engineer take 30min of their day to write a "real world" technical assesment pdf document. Come on, who's got that kind of time...

[@paulscottrobson]

I was once asked to write code to swap two variables over (honestly). I made the point by writing it in every language I knew :)

[@charlesm.2604]

​​​​​@@BillClinton228This! Whether someone knows algo or not does not mean they can design database tables efficiently, does not mean they write future proof code, does not mean they can voice shortcomings or concerns to their managers, does not mean they have any kind of experience using the tooling that we use in enterprise, etc. If anything it's probably the opposite. Someone who spends months blindly memorizing leetcode solutions and optimizing them is wasting time instead of practicing things that their future employers will *actually* expect from them. Most jobs in SWE aren't related to algo at all. I can only think of game dev, robotic/spatial embedded and some specific uses in system programing. When you end up wasting thousands of dollars because your API exposes complete data from multiple endpoints because you were too busy practicing bfs algos instead of practicing real design problems, hopefully then it'll be a wake up call.

[@gabrielbarrantes6946]

​@@charlesm.2604robotics and embedded? Not even close... I don't know about games tho... But I suspect that this things are just almost never used... Same as almost every engineer barely usit the advanced math they learned in college...

[@charlesm.2604]

@@gabrielbarrantes6946 For gamedev algo is super important, trust me I spent countless caffeinated sleepless nights during my indie gamedev phase, that shit gave me PTSD! 😂 I guess you're right for robotics though the sdk libraries are the ones who implement algo so even in most embedded usecases it's not required 😅

[@EricT43]

I agree with you on this. 99% of my job as a software engineer involves simple code. If I come across a problem that requires some algorithm that I don't remember, I can research it when I need it.

[@acasualviewer5861]

I've found that when I find some code where I get to use some awesome algorithm, that I've often failed to consider that I can use some other tool to solve it faster / better and in more maintainable fashion. Sadly for application programming it's rarely justified to write cool algorithms.

[@luisoncpp]

Code interview rarely ask you about specific coding algorithm, and it's usually pretty simple code. Thinks like linked lists and binary trees are the most simple data structures, asking anything different could be too demanding to do it in less than an hour. A simple example of something similar but practical: you receive a JSON with posibbly many nested objects, some of them may have a field named _id of type string with a serialized ObjectId(from bson/mongodb). You want to create a copy of the same object but replacing the _id strings by actual instances of ObjectId. That has happened to me in my workday, but asking this questions in an interview would made it too specific about JavaScript and non relational databases, so it would be better to replace the Json by a tree, and the _id by just a special kind of node.

[@meritocratik]

"I work on simple stack - everything should be simple". Bro, painting buttons and writing low level code on C - completely different. Im completely sure that you are not working on low level (and I don't say you are painting buttons on css, it's an example)

[@bobsemple9341]

​@@meritocratikyou've no idea what ur talking about. The fact u think C code can't be simple is embarrassing. Maybe it's time to give up being a dev?

[@meritocratik]

​@@bobsemple9341 where i said that C cannot be simple? what is simple for you? some shit like udp server? or writing driver for linux? or no brain DHT from scratch is simple for you? specify pls. everything is judged by comparison, low level is obv harder than margin right, padding left, that is my point. if u are not agree, never ever talk to me or to any "it's time to give up being a dev" and learn context before making argument. and yes, I wrote code on both stack for reasonable amount of time, so pls dont make any assymptions if you arent aware. another thing - difficulty is subjective, if u are not stupid enough you should notice that subjectiveness surprisingly exists in our world and wow (how it is even possible) not all people equal, but as we can see - you didn't notice that, so it's a sad commentary. but objectively, css is simpler than C, ask anyone who have both experience. just relax and go ahead to linux repo, help them with your brilliant easy-coded chad contribution if u are so bored in your work. trust me, its better than trying to some infant flex here presumably while procrastinating

[@barenjunk]

Thank you for this. I was caught up in the game industry layoffs at the beginning of the year and EVERY SINGLE interview used leetcode or something similar. I've been a software engineer for around 20 years now and cant tell you the last time i hand-coded quick sort or a red-black tree... but those were the types of questions asked. Never mind that a candidate has worked in multiple languages across multiple industries... "if they cant code a quick sort in 15 minutes, we dont want them". I've been on the hiring side in the past and I think the combination of leetcode questions on timed, web based, non-interactive tests are completely worthless for anyone with experience. I'd much rather a candidate walk me through a problem they solved in the past and we have a conversation where they explain the problem, solution, why they chose the solution, how they discovered the solution, etc. But that takes time and hiring managers who also have a clue.... which seems to be more and more rare.

[@moonasha]

it's the dumbest thing. For 99% of algorithms a competent programming would just get a library and save time not writing what is essentially boilerplate. For the rest, it should take more than 15 minutes.

[@luisoncpp]

Implement a quicksort or a red-black tree in the whiteboard?, that seems pretty dumb imho, but at the same time, I'm not sure how much believe you, since I was an interviewer myself in a big tech company and nobody was suggesting that kind of stuff. I also have seen interview problems from a couple of other big tech companies and they didn't ask that. Usually they ask for simple things like a window sliding, simple operations on liked lists or a simple operation in the most basic binary tree (not red-back tree).

[@MartinPowderly]

Grinding leetcode is like learning scales on the piano in order to join an industry where you're supposed to write symphonies like Beethoven, given time. When you're in the engineering environment, it doesn't work like that day to day... ever... not even in FANG... (trust me on this, I work there). I've also worked with incredibly competent engineers who, when made redundant, were asked leetcode style questions by small companies who 'think they're Google'. He didn't get the job, confidence so utterly destroyed that he thought he should change industry. On the other hand, the best interview for engineering I ever had was surrounded with questions like: "You live in a country which drives on the left. The government put you in charge of a new initiative to change the traffic system so everyone drives on the right. So... how would you go about it?". You start proposing logistical solutions and in collaboration with the interviewer, you go down the rabbit hole probing the weaknesses with your idea and you collaboratively change the plan and correct your thinking as the interviewer finds holes in your solutions. It's not about 'correctness'. It's about mental agility and can you think flexibly and creatively. You can't study for this, and basically the intake of candidates was from people of all walks of life - not just Comp Sci. I got the job and worked with amazing people who were trained in astrophysics, art and textile design. They still work in the industry, some of the best engineers I ever worked with. While anyone can be a trained monkey, I prefer to work with creative intelligent people and this was (as intimidating as it was) the BEST interview process I have ever come across. The company by the way is a household name and extremely successful in the UK to this very day.

[@moonasha]

I would disagree with this analogy, because at least scales are useful and used in music all the time, and are good to practice. Imo a better analogy would be leet code is like learning a 3 second piece of a song. It's completely useless, nobody wants to hear it, and you aren't going to learn to play an instrument that way because literally anyone can learn to play 3 seconds of a song on an instrument given enough time

[@Bladieblah]

The elitism here is profound. Calling people who put in hard work, some of who likely out skill you by a lot "trained monkeys", while revelling in your supposed unique special talent that no amount of hard work can achieve

[@ShayPatrickCormacTHEHUNTER]

@@Bladieblah hes right. Stop coping.

[@Bladieblah]

@@ShayPatrickCormacTHEHUNTER You're also one of the special ones?

[@ShayPatrickCormacTHEHUNTER]

@@Bladieblah you should ask those who know me that. That's what reputations are for.

[@SvenReinck]

These problems are perfect for ChatGPT. You don’t need a software engineer for them.

[@Daijyobanai]

Going to use that in the next interview. Interview with rat-moustache: "how would you [snickers to self] solve this problem [more creepy snickering and inappropriate touching of self]" Me "[types problem into AI, tells rat-tache to g*t ****ed] like this". Same way I wouldn't spend a day writing a regex when I could go to one of 50 regex checker sites and do it there in the pre-AI days.

[@shangothrax]

Just what I was thinking.

[@januslast2003]

Because ChatGPT is trained on LeetCode. 🙂

[@investing_engineer]

Surprisingly they aren’t lol. Because of the volume of bad solutions online ChatGPT has a ton of bad data

[@test-rj2vl]

@@investing_engineer I would say that ChatGPT team is separating bad and good learning data quite well. But the problem is rather that ChatGPT cant think on it's own. It's like LeetCode student who has memorized absolutely everything but understands absolutely nothing.

[@viralstuff3419]

Software engineers from all countries - unite! in order to change the rules of the game and keep the high salaries

[@rtusiime]

The leetcode is there BECAUSE of the high salary… you can’t have one without the other. If the roles paid like shit, people wouldn’t be willing to do all that leetcode for them. But the reason people choose to grind 5 months straight is because they’d rather do that than get a lower paying job in a different industry

[@test-rj2vl]

I had interview where instead of LeetCode they gave me frameworks that I had never seen before and asked me to code some features to some dummy 100-200 lines long web app they've created. And what they wanted to see was who well I can read the documentation of framework that I have not seen before and how well I can figure things out - they didn't even care that I finish the solution within given time limit. Since I am not a math person I was fine with it because math questions to me would mean that I could only pass them within time limit if I have memorized it before. But with frameworks if you have general understanding, you will get a ton of hints from autocomplete alone so it's much easier for me and much better for company because my real job wasnt to code algorithms.

[@rendomstranger8698]

In my opinion, Leetcode should be used for only 1 thing. Learning how to code more effectively. It should be used as training exercises only. Not as an indication of how good someone is at a job that has nothing to with algorithmic programming.

[@jacquesduplessis8944]

Interviewers seem to not care that these problems are kinda based on CS Data Structures & Algorithms and lots of SWE's don't have formal qualifications, yet the interviewers wants you code like a CS dev when it's not required IRL.

[@genghisdingus]

Coding exercises are generally a waste of time because you can make/contribute to functioning projects instead. Leetcode questions teach you next to nothing about broader project structure and working with other people's code.

[@robertgrant721]

So glad I'm at the end of my programming career rather than at the start! No way I'd get a job today. Back in the day when I was interviewing programmers for a job, we got tired of getting programmers who only knew how to code in theory but had really not put in the time at the computer (i.e. could hardly use the keyboard). In the end I started giving a typing test so we could see if we were getting BSed! :) I guess things have escalated from there!

[@Sarwaan001]

The company I work for found that there’s a correlation between how well someone answer DSA questions and how well someone answers system design. Might just be because they’re probably interview prepped more but we hope that DSA knowledge bleeds into system design, which kinda makes sense when choosing the right database for the problem.

[@varunsharma5582]

Problem solving ability is indeed related. Solving a lot of maths automatically makes you waaaay better at leetcode and system design as well.

[@taragnor]

@@TapetBart Well technically speaking everything is an algorithm. When people talk about using algorithms, they're talking about the leetcode problems like "Check a linked list to see if it has any cycles." And well for the most part, I have to say, the argument is more or less valid. I can't think of the last time I even used a linked list, let alone had a need to run some leetcode algorithm on one. While I use things like Hashmaps, I can't remember the last time I've actually written a hashing function. So for the most part, I don't really need to know much about the algorithm behind the Hashmap, just that it has faster lookup than a vector/list/array.

[@mahmoudtokura]

Right now, I think the software job market needs to strike a balance. It seems DSA is more of an excuse to reduce the number of applicants or some form of hazing ritual. If an applicant is tested for basic DSA and then moves on to the core of the job requirement, it will be a more balanced process.

[@modolief]

Love your commentaries. And am glad you didn't edit out that thing near the beginning. Retired / burned out software eng here. I never had to do much with Leetcode, it was mostly after my time. Though I am giving some of these LeetCode questions to one of my students. I think he needs to know what he is going to face.

[@Evilanious]

I haven't done a huge amount of these types of problems, probably a few dozen or maybe a hundred across various types of lessons and exercises I've done. I have done more maths exercises in my life and much more chess puzzles. As I understand it these types of problems have the following didactic purpose, in descending order of importance. 1. Help understand concepts. Hearing about a tree, or a hashmap is one thing, but implementing it is different. It's possible to think you understand without really understanding, but after you solve a few representative problems you know you at least understand it well enough. Or if you get stuck you know you have some work to do. 2. Help internalize concepts. This is especially important if these concepts are later going to be a small part of a larger picture. If there is one or two elements of the larger picture that give you pause, you can still piece it together, but it shouldn't be too many. The datastructure and algorithmic side is one side that might give you pause, and if it doesn't you are one step ahead. It will probably be easier to spar with stakeholders if you can quickly think about solutions in your head and that's easier if you've solved some similar problems before. 3. Speed. The first benefit of speed is that you can solve a problem faster, and the second and underrated benefit is that you can explore more options if you can code your options quickly. I have limited sympathy for the idea that leetcode problems abstract away many factors of real life coding. That's sort of the point. You focus on one part of it, to teach yourself that precise part. This only becomes a problem if little practice problems become the only type of study you do. People who know how to learn will supplement this with theoretical reading or viewing that the exercises are hopefully paired with, and with bigger personal projects (coding your own apps for practice, for example), studying important tools, design patters and so on. Unfortunately a lot of people study these problems for a fourth reason: to do well on important tests. Job interviews in this case. Studying for a test is usually not didactically sound. In this case it leads to internalizing concepts beyond any need and memorizing problems instead of understanding the concepts.

[@dirk-piehl28]

the problem isn't just leetcode. at my company we use IKM. the problem with IKM is that it tests for an extremely specific skillset, when the job requires multiple skillsets. so we always overtest and always undertest because the company refuses to administer (read: pay for) the multiple required tests. got so bad for my time i just say ok, 30 minute interview and a thorough check of your CV and i'll take the risk. for the most junior only. for the more senior i do a vague take-home test. the idea is i don't have to tell you to use SOLID and Clean architecture if you're really a senior, it's really how you fill in the technical blanks...

[@jimzielinski946]

I'm guessing it was about 40 years ago (I'm retired now), I interviewed at a company where they gave me a problem to solve in C. At the that time, it was normal to just write out your code with pencil and paper. In any event, my interviewer looked at my code and agreed that I solved the problem, but dug into me for not solving it the way it was written in the K & R (bible?). She then spent the rest of the interview impressing on me that her masters degree from a big university was enough to judge my work as an expert. I remained polite but was glad to leave.

[@vinitvsankhe]

We are a startup and we also do Coding challenge. But it's a full stack project of the candidate's choice of problem statement and technology for 3 days. This gives us a holistic view of their critical thinking, design thinking and also skills. And then we ask them to explain it by scanning the code and propose scenarios e.g. best data structures for improving a given logic or best infrastructure architecture that would work for a given question or if the technology used moves from SQL to Nosql etc. It keeps them grounded and forces them to learn the code even if they had to do a blind copy paste

[@anthonyhawkes4101]

As a cybersecurity engineer (with some software dev background) who sits in on interviews as a technical interviewer, I spend time looking at someone's resume and asking questions to validate their knowledge as well. If someone manages to get to an interview and that don't exactly meet the requirements we find out if they are a team fit and ask abstract questions to see if they could fit the role. A key question I always ask in some way or another is "if you didn't know the answer what would you do?" and I'm literally just wanting them to tell me they Google it. I'm not an expert interviewer but I've not been disappointed by the several candidates I've given a thumbs up for. To get quality hires, you need quality interviewers, which requires a pool of existing quality talent who don't have an ego so large they need to flex hardcore unrealistic problems on candidates. I've certainly asked challenging questions - I've been surprised to get right answers but I'm more asking to see how they handle a problem.

[@_Mentat]

People seem remarkably weak on basic computer sci these days. At interview I asked if 0xAA was odd or even? Some candidates were foxed by the question.

[@iTzFiNaL]

As someone who has recently started learning web development and is enioying it, it was very disheartening to get to data structures and end up really struggling with things like algorithms, leetcode problems and big o notation etc. I just want to make websites in react and stuff like that makes me feel like i can't be a web dev.

[@gizmoknow-how2022]

TLDR: Leetcode in itself is a haven of learning software engineering. If you enjoy leetcoding to a certain degree, you're on the right path. Grinding the hell out of Leetcode while not enjoying it at all just because these fucking corporates set their shitty interviews that way is the real problem. I myself was benefitted immensely after spending hours on Leetcode, because I like doing it and learnt a whole lot of new concepts along the way. My programming skills certainly skyrocketed and so did my problem solving skills. It also makes you think more low-level about creating your subroutines for a given problem.

[@bogdyee]

I think solving problems did enhance my ability to code by a wide margin. When I was younger I liked solving problems but I never had to grind for them. Even tho these algorithms don't really come up that often in my day to day work, It did help me solve some problems in a creative way and helped me design systems a little better since I found edge cases much easier. I'm generally against giving very specific algorithms at interviews (like number theory or really weird data structures) but good devs should be able to solve ad-hoc problems.

[@rnickerson43]

I love to see this kind of video. Coding interviews are a real issue with this industry.I've been doing various kinds of software development for more than 20 years and about 10 years ago I decided I was never going to write code during a formal interview again. I'm happy to broadly discuss various strategies for solving problems (heck I would do that for hours if they let me) and describe how I might break down any given problem into smaller, more solvable chunks, but I wont write code. If they want to see code I always suggest that they pair me with one of their developers for a few hours. That way I'm solving real problems, not "interview" problems, and the developer I'm paired with will get to see if I know what I'm talking about and how well I work collaboratively with another developer. And yes, this means I've had some very short interviews with some companies since the interviewer (often not a developer at all) doesn't know how to proceed if I wont write code on the spot. But I've still been very successful and I think handling interviews this way has helped me to find projects and jobs that I enjoy far more than I would have otherwise.

[@captaingabi]

I just did a leetcode interview. My thoughts exactly. When I am interviewer, I never do leetcode.

[@rushas]

Well, it's easy to butcher the current solution but what's the alternative? How can the interviewing team decide within an hour whether the person is capable of solving problems and coding?

[@kuikibandy7901]

I have thoroughly enjoyed this rant. It should have been longer. I am in the dungeons of leetcode grinding like all the victims who came before me. I want to cry and laugh at the same time. Life is just hard right now😮

[@qwe14205]

LeetCode monkey dance is like playing fast rounds of chess for spinal surgeon interview. It's good if you win most of them in general, but why not test skills that will be actually used during spinal surgery.

[@jordanjackson6151]

Your vids always had an honest air about them. I feel like I was waiting for someone to post something like this. Liked and finally subscribed! I wasn't understanding why Leet code was so pushed as of recently. Especially when companies now are in more demand for employing fresh IT blood than ever. I mean, "Oh the industry is in a severe need. So lets make it harder for them to get in the damn door!", is what its starting to look like now.... Not exactly gate keeping (overused term). But it is something counter-effective. And it's stupid weird. I've had fun and trouble with the languages I've so far learned. But the courses I took to learn them all taught me problem solving and product generating measures. You know, the actual shit that is on a job?

[@No-no-no-no-nope]

I didn't know LeetCode at all and in an interview I was asked three questions by the platform. They weren't really difficult and in the end it's fun to solve such tasks. I think that's exactly what the companies want to find out, i.e. whether you enjoy it and how you approach such tasks. They don't want people to practice up and down a platform like this. I'm sorry, every developer should be able to solve the simple to intermediate tasks without having to practise.

[@Zayelion]

Pretty sure this whole debacle was a sinfully effective marketing campaign that has gotten everyone fucked up. For a software company you want as smart a person as you can, with good communication skills but effectively no spine. They arent gonna tell you "no that's a dumb idea, let us not do that" they are just gonna take nootropics and not sleep till they come up with an answer. But you cant say that or your interview will get gamed. Leetcode acts as a cultural barrier and an IQ test. It only tells the interviewer if the person is from the culture of the founders. As a smaller business owner you don't want this, its how you end up with a daycare and then a union.

[@taintedtapper]

I find the YT channel Exponent more meaningful because they give reasonable interview questions and show you reasonably lengthy videos where experts go through each of these problems in a job-interview style. It's quite more grounded than grinding Leetcode.

[@AdamFiregate]

The thing is even in Hungary, many small companies and scaleups are doing Leetcode style interview, which you would say that doesn't make any sense. They are not FAANG, they are small and cheap attitude companies and they still do it.

[@jacquesduplessis8944]

FAANG started it

[@MaurizioTuratti]

This would explain why big techs suck hard in terms of user experience. We need more developers who can talk with customers and understand their problems instead of being good at parrot tricks

[@akialter]

Swe in the past are master of DSA because that’s how they optimized our computers to work under constraints. From making an OS, designing underlying architecture like cache, instructions scheduling. Now we only have to solve a couple of puzzle problems and we are complaining?

[@EffKayDownSouth]

Agree with your take that solving thousands of similar small problems does not really help in the real world when you are faced with a problem you've never seen yet. The approach you take to tackle these problems, is all the difference between a successful software engineer / dev and those who will not get it.

[@luisoncpp]

When I interviewed for big tech, the recruiters told me to read Programming Interviews Exposed, where it explains that talking about the thinking process and asking the right questions is important. I also was a Google employee and we didn't use Leetcode problems to interview people, we were actively told to choose problems that were not in that kind of websites. Overall I am happy that someone finally talks about this issue, I'm planning to talk about that as well.

[@kcm624]

In Faang interviews they do expect you ask question about edge cases, what format to return etc. before starting to write code.

[@olafschluter706]

As far as I can tell from more than three decades working in the IT business, we do not have leetcode-like interview questions at all in the hiring process here in Germany. We don't ask them, we don't have to answer them. I just recently discovered leetcode on my journey to learn Rust, and took some problems there as exercises on how to do that in Rust. I found that quite helpful. The work on one problem even evolved into a small example of computer generated art. It was fun.

[@yummyfunnybunny5167]

Never used leat code. Self taught myself code and just landed a job 💪🏻

[@jumpingphantom]

Imagine being able to solve 1000 Leetcode problems just to not being able to center a div.

[@laujimmy9282]

Thank you so much for the advice, I do struggle with Leet codes and finds it not as helpful as it seems in real life experience.

[@KyleHarrington]

communication is more important than mentally copying/pasting your memorized algorithms

[@uppermiddleclass]

As a person who solved several hundred leetcode I wholeheartedly support leetcode based hiring

[@kushaagr]

Leetcode is not bad practise, overuse of it is and ignoring others aspects of Software Engineering is.

[@mariusg8824]

My typical workday contains three questions: 1) What's actually is our problem? 2) Can we fix it? 3) Should we fix it? Fixing anything has often a ton of side effects that you need to consider. So you need to communicate A LOT with stakeholders. Question and Answer riddles like these are unrealistic, because in reality you don't even have the question.

[@TheLadyEx]

God I had to find a new job last year and I hated these stupid automated tests. None of this stuff has anything to do with actual software engineering job duties, or actual problem solving skills. It’s just a “how well do you remember your computer science 102 midterm?” test. Eventually I did so many practice problems that the ones in interviews were ones I had already seen before so I could solve them within minutes.

[@RobertBartlettBaron]

Leetcode aslso assumes that their tests are canoical. For example, for some of the problems, you can solve them using floating points or you can solve them using integers. Of course, if you solve those problems using integers you will get exact solutions, but if you solve them using floating points you may have answers that are off by a little. Leet code assumes that you are using floating points, so if you are off by the same amount, then it is ok - if you solve it using integers operations some of the test cases will fail.

[@jimsmith5562]

Most refreshing KZbin video I have seen in such a long time. Keep making these kind of video'sDee

[@artificiyal]

in my country we have to grind 5 different platforms

[@what_if-ky2ml]

can you tell me those platforms

[@marcohidalgo1101]

@@what_if-ky2ml Hackerrank is another one.

[@augustday9483]

As a fullstack engineer at a fortune 500 company, I can confidently say that my day to day work pretty much NEVER involves writing algorithms or solving Leetcode-style problems. My experience has been much more geared towards interfacing with APIs, processing real-world data, and managing deployments in complex microservice ecosystems. Leetcode doesn't do a good job of teaching programmers practical skills, in my opinion.

[@acasualviewer5861]

I haven't done a lot of Leet Code. But I sure enjoyed coming up with a true O(N) solution of the random array shuffle problem. But in general I'm the one doing interviews, not the other way around. I don't use leet code because I think it's most important in an interview to find out what strengths the candidate DOES have, rather than discover the ones the candidate doesn't. So finding ways to make them shine is the true art of interviewing. Then, if those skills match what you're needing or are generally impressive enough, you hire them. But it's hard to come up with a problem that illustrates if the developer can do the job. I have used a simple problem like "show me a loop that adds up all numbers from 1 to 10" to see if they can do trivial programming.

[@JackFinchly]

Thank you for your video. I agree with you that lots can be hidden behind an interview that’s based on Leetcode. But apart from real world experience, what alternative to Leetcode can you find to actually help candidates prepare for software engineering jobs?

[@ciscou]

I kinda enjoy leetcode because I like puzzles. I've become good at it and I agree that says nothing about how good I am as a software engineer. Also I've passed some leetcode-like interviews and I've declined continuing with the hiring process, which might be a weird thing to be proud about, but hey that's me.

[@ehudv9276]

Testing for a sw engineer position with leedcode problems, is like testing for taxi driver position with driving theory questions.

[@flameofthephoenix8395]

4:45 This question is unclear it could mean a number of things, it says that each node contains one digit, however we can tell this is not strictly one digit because that would not allow it to also contain a reference to the next and previous node which means that they really mean it must contain at least one digit, this means the whole number could be stored in a single node of a 1 length list or it could be infinitely long which leads to there being infinite ways to interpret the question from thereon, it also does not tell the base the numbers are stored in, this means that it accurately could store a number like 314 without having more than one digit if it is in base 314, additionally it is also possible that it could be storing the next and previous node references encoded directly into the single digit but it did not explicitly say this leading to another possible interpretation, it does not say how the resulting linked list should be stored, and also it does not tell where the decimal point is so we can not know whether the nodes 1, 4, and 1 are 1.41 or 141. I could go on, but I haven't the time at this moment.

[@SK-yb7bx]

This is refreshing. Some exercises such as 2some is well worth learning.

[@refusalspam]

Interviewers need to stop being lazy and create their own role specific coding questions. Your subject domain probably has some problem in it that requires data structures and/or algorithms. Derive a question from that. If your domain doesn’t have anything remotely complicated then why are you asking leet code questions in the first place?

[@andrewpoloni4197]

I think people miss the point of these interview techniques that the FANGs use; what they're really judging candidates on is (IMHO) not what your technical skills really are, but what the person is really willing to do to get the job they (think they) want. If you're willing to grind LeetCode for months to prep for an interview, the company then (rightly) assumes that, once they hire you, you're going to be willing to grind for them as well. It's about what a candidate's commitment level is as much or more as their technical skills. The process is more a psychological/personality evaluation than a technical one (again, IMHO).

[@donald-parker]

In s/w, what you know when you walk in the door is not as important as a demonstrated ability to learn and apply new knowledge. Because things change. Fast. As a hiring manager, I am less interested in how many years of experience you have with specific technology than I am in examples of learning, applying, leading, making a difference. I like to ask questions about examples where they can relate how they had to come up to speed in something they did not have previous experience with, how they approached it, what the results were, how they might change their approach in the future. Examples of particularly difficult problems they have faced. What made it difficult? How did they cope with or handle the difficulty? Even just generic questions about problem solving approach. And of course, examples of how they have helped a teammate, the company, or added value beyond their specific assignments. How they have dealt with problem people, negative feedback, .... social stuff. How they approach doing maintenance on a legacy code base they are not familiar with. At the end of the day, writing new code is the smallest part of a professional s/w engineer's career. And the further up the ladder you go, the truer this becomes.

[@MasterSergius]

That feeling when you solved whole leetcode and hired to make and support a simple restful api for a weather site

[@thecount25]

Yep that Reddit post says it all. Thanks for covering this.

[@musicjotter]

These companies hire an excess of workers who are not actually needed (at the time of hire). Because of this, they have developed tests and started treating the hiring process like school. When you start treating a company like school, you know they have too much free time. Think about it, if there was a legitimate posting where a company was in desperate need of a good software engineer, the interviewers would be having much different discussions. So to me, the leetcode problem is due to "not really needing" talent today. It's very strange, but it has everything to do with $$ and how much $$ companies have to "stock up" on engineers. And the most efficient way to stock up on engineers is through these tests. Fun fact, I actually am using a linked list for a real world application in a software program I am developing. I used to hate linked lists because of the interviewing culture (and why not just use an array for everything). But when you are looking to speed up execution time, linked lists are your answer in some cases. Learning "when and why" to use a linked list is much more powerful than learning how to implement one. And these are things you won't learn from leetcode.

[@frankmalenfant2828]

I've never wanted to have any job I've been interviewed for in big companies. They alway fail to show purpose. They always fail to show they know what they are doing. They always fail to show they have any power over their tasks. Why would I want to work for a company where staff has no purpose, no power, and are constantly left in the dark about what they do stuff for. Working in a small team for a small business has it's downsides, but you can get a job that ticks these three boxes.

[@yesterdaysrose5446]

I have mostly been interviewed by smaller companies, and all they really want to hear is what programming languages and tech I'm familiar with. If I ever had to be handed a programming pop quiz, I would never get past a napkin sketch in an interview time frame, because that's just how I build software in real life. I never touch the IDE until the second day earliest. You want quality software? This is how you get quality software.

[@valcubeto]

The worst part is people just copy-pasting the solution

[@bigthebird-]

I think there is also a certain level of creativity that makes a great developer. My background was in bioinformatics, so using analytical tools like R and Python to draw conclusions from biological data like genomics. I wanted to expand my skills from what was becoming monotonous number crunching so I would make an interactive app for each plot I made. I started out making basic Shiny apps but then started hooking them up to backend dbs like Mongo prettying them up with HTML, CSS, and JS. Then Docker, deployment, and workflow managers, etc. Then I moved onto other frameworks like Svelte. I’m not a true developer, still an analyst, so I’m still not super knowledgeable about development, but I found that for me at least learning software development was more about abstraction and planning than just writing code to solve problems. Understanding how services worked and interacted together help me out heaps. Then the more I built everyday, the more familiar I became with development. I guess also knowing I don’t have a true dev background takes the pressure off to be “good” at it and just have fun with it and make mistakes.

[@antred11]

LOL, seeing how one apparently needs to be an elite SW developer to even get through an interview, I sure have come across a lot of developers that would struggle to write a hello-world program without producing a segmentation fault.

[@Aim54Delta]

To make it short, most programming tasks revolve around either being able to reduce real world problems into puzzles to be solved with programming, or communicating with a team of people working on a very large puzzle and making sure your solution is collaborative with those of others. Hiring the puzzle solving savants won't necessarily make for a functional programming department.

[@stillmattwest]

As an engineering manager, I don’t use Leetcode questions. I use questions that show me someone knows how to deal with the kind of issues they’ll run into in day to day work. That said, I can’t just interview everyone, so I like automated coding tests as an initial filter, and those often do involve some DS&A. I don’t recommend the memorization route. Instead, learn strategies and patterns that can be used for a variety of problems.

[@BenGarrard-k9m]

Needs to be a take home, with a sample project and a feature request. For Staff level, a sample project guided with a detailed business description, known issues of the business, and I want to see solution on how a feature will unlock more revenue, or enhance UX, or reduce costs, and a simple implementation. IDC how clean, just get the feature in, lets see how it can be improved (next steps is all I care about at the end). With AI, you should be able to work in almost any language and have a decent understanding to implement any simple feature requested out of a sample project. Not multi-threaded, data sharded, quantized bit-streaming solutions.....no that is not what I look for at least (that is wild in a sample). I want someone that just gets the feature in as quickly as possible with a future solution to optimize further at a later time when we can pay the tech debt down. Now, thats my needs, some may need really good engineers specialized in algorithms and optimizations (such as embedded programming), but for most SaaS needs, unless you are doing some crazy with some hardware, its really about development time and the value that development brings.

[@HarshitDaftary]

Agree but unfortunately MNCs’ non-technical recruiters, over paid managers aren’t aware of it.

[@AlexanderArtamonov]

Well, Im a mature software engineer and some couple of months ago started to learn rust and leetcode really helps me to face all these borrow checker stuff in real problems (yeah, double linked list with OWNERSHIP and all). I would actually reword the title to “stupid monkey coders from leetcode, thats worst thing ever happened to industry”.

[@ranabanerjee3744]

Leetcode is the gateway for interviewer will not let you past this in the interview process Leetcode is also used to reject candidates although the legal system does not support it , but it is a good way to denounce a candidate

[@jacquesduplessis8944]

Yet there are many who can code, they just don't code puzzles.

[@geriatricvicenarian8208]

FAANG companies seem to ask less esoteric algo puzzles than small and mid sized companies now. People genuinely have a better shot at clearing programming screening for the bigger corps.

[@Lorryslorryss]

Leetcode and the way interviews are done is a bit mad. But I don't think learning algorithms is worthless. That's because "I'll look it up when I need it" doesn't really work. In the real world, your large data efficiency problem isn't going to come to you and say "Solve me with an X algorithm". If you want to succeed, you're going to have to be familiar with a range of algorithms, or at least enough to recognize the problem. That's a skill the average developer probably won't use very often, but I think it's still worth having.

[@sarjannarwan6896]

I'm a Senior Engineer with 5-6 years of experience. I would fail a leetcode interview if I didn't have maybe 2 weeks of prep. Data structures come up day to day, but leetcode style questions don't really map to the job. There are much more important skills. I wish we moved away from this so people could spend that free time learning more important fundamentals.

[@aaronbono4688]

Whenever I do interviews the question that I like to ask more than anything is a question that has no real answer. I purposefully leave out critical information waiting for the person to start asking questions and drilling down to find out what the problem really is. I really don't care if somebody knows how to code a solution to a specific problem, I do care that they know how to code, but what I really really want is to know how they problem-solve, I want to see them think through and try to figure out a solution to a problem. Coding solutions to problems like this is just asking chat GPT or going and searching the internet, you can find these solutions, but what the machine algorithms can't do even today is problem solve, actually think.

[@apostolisparga]

I never understood this logic of solving maths problems to get a real life job. I once applied for a SWE training programme for a large, Scandinavian banking institution. At that time I had build quite a few full-stack apps and put myself through CS-style training. There was a portfolio up for the world to see and my GitHub look decent. While I'm not saying that there were no better candidates, the reason I was rejected was because I scored less than 80% on an 'aptitude test' named 'Alva'. Nothing to do with what I had or hadn't actually done in terms of SWE. Couple of years on, I'm happily employed as a front-end engineer and believe it or not I had to actually code a working app and talk to other engineers as part of the interview! Shocking, I know. I guess company culture speaks volumes...

[@maestro69hz]

Saw the video on agile and now this one. Subbed.

[@dennisdouglas4729]

There’s an old saying “it’s easier to code than to think”. It’s old for me anyway.

[@Gamewithstyle]

Don’t even get me started on JavaScript interview questions. Yeah, you obviously want me to have memorized the array methods. I get it. But have you considered a for loop? We have a serious problem with the inversion of Occam’s Razor. The most complex solution is usually the one that interviewers desire. But in over a decade of coding professionally, I’ve never heard a single business requirement that read “write the most elegant looking code imaginable”. Most of the time I hear things like “make it do x really fast”. We are practical problem solvers, not theoretical ones, and that isn’t tested by interviews anymore.

[@kamertonaudiophileplayer847]

Accordingly your video I can conclude that LeetCode is a cool site and helps to grow good engineers. I understand that you mean that reals tasks are different than LeetCode. Maybe, but so far they perfectly cover my needs.

[@Tech_Publica]

And by the way no, the interviewers will not expect you to provide the solution immediately and mechanically, actually they will get suspicious if you do. They will in fact expect you to ask questions to clarify the problem, the edge cases, the boundary conditions.. and will be much more interested in the way you reason about a solution then about how quickly and efficiently you are gong to provide a solution. And the number of questions you practice on has nothing to do with how meaningfully you practice. You can work on one questione in a dumb way just memorizing the steps or a in thoughtful way on one thousand, and viceversa . What is certain is that if you are a lazy , self centered and entitled brat no amount of leetcoding will turn you into a competent and passionate problem solver.

[@AutobotsTransform]

Love your channel ❤ You speak the truth!

[@Tech_Publica]

you are supposed to be a programmer and this is your level of reasoning? Of course algorithm practice can be abused and done wrong , like pretty much everything in this world, but that does not mean in any way that is is a bad thing in itself. Reasoning over and solving and practicing algorithmic challenges does indeed make you a better software engineer. Another very moot point is that it is not "real life software development". Look at any sport professional or at any musician while they are training: most of their training is in fact not just what they do when they play. Let's say the truth.. shall we? You are someone who does not like algorithms and data structures , probably suck at them and instead of working to eliminate this weak spot you are wish you could just rant them away of existence.... One might say that you are exactly the reason why big tech company give so much importance to algos and data structure questions in their interviews..

[@BohdanTrotsenko]

TLDR: leetcode is for other smarter people out there, who can generalize rather than memorize a solution

[@InfiniteDesign91]

Leetcode is inherently not bad if a new dev wants to improve algorithmic thinking and problem solving. However it is just one aspect of software development. What sucks is every company wants to test me with their custom stuff even though I have a degree, and went trough all the broad learning process. Algorithms, databases....etc. I can prepare for sure, but when I have not touched SQL for 2 years, and interviewer suddenly comes up with a nice SQL task, that's the time when I stand up and leave the interview. On the other hand, it's hard to come up with a deep interview that is representative.

[@raffa4456]

You know what's the sad thing about all of this? That essentially, you do exactly that in schools. You make kids learn a bunch of questions and their answers and they never learn the actual logic behind anything. They essentially, or many of them who don't have tutors or parents who can explain it to them, only do memory tasks without understanding anything which makes it so hard to retain anything and then reproduce it. A lot of things I only understood in Uni and I feel robbed, quite honestly, with how interesting many things actually are when someone who actually understands it explain it to you. And then you also know why you should know more of that.

[@jasonfreeman8022]

I know I commented earlier, but something about the practice of leetcode was nagging me. Today I remembered that Donald Knuth famously said that premature optimization was “the root of all evil”. Leetcode is tactical optimization and completely breaks the principle that Knuth was laying out; don’t expend resources on something that may not even matter. Leetcoders expend great resources training themselves to prematurely optimize. Done long enough it will blind you to much greater concerns like design. I now know how I will respond to interview questions that involve leetcode.

[@PieJee1]

I had it once on a job interview. I just use my own brain, no preparations and according to them i executed it faster than 98% of people making the test. I must be a genius😅 but during work most assignments are much simpler. The test was fun to make, but i did not care getting a job like this

[@Amankhan-cl1dq]

Solving leetcode is not bad as long as you are solving problems which actually make you understand algorithms better. For example - solving maximum sum subarray, actually make you understand kadane's algorithm. Solving problems on trees and graphs help you to understand concepts like dfs,bfs, traversal, shortest path etc better. But problem comes when you start solving problems which actually just does not make any sense at all such as add two numbers represented by linkedlist, mean in real world you are never going to use the concept which you learned by solving this problem, another such example is - odd even linked list. Also nobody need to solve 500 or 1000 leetcode problems. Just solve leetcode blind 75 and after that top 150 interview questions (a problem list on leetcode itself).

[@BornRiders]

Dee, if using LeetCode is bad, what do you recommend for training?

[@claytonvanderhaar3772]

Agree completely with this but its not just leetcode its writing in some cases a small program that more thank likely you will never get to do in the real world this is why so many Dev positions dont get filled it the stupid assessments thats is Algorithmic and has nothing to do with the job itself, maybe ask the Dev his experience how he works in a team and he handles juniors and PM's etc... I think is way more valuable

[@odytrice]

I've been a software developer/engineer for close to 20 years and now I am currently in a FAANG company and I can tell you that such trivia questions are rarely what you will be doing on a day to day basis. The more important skill is the problem solving. You know.. The VERY THING Leet code is trying to determine. Being able to collaborate, think and talk through problems is way more important. Efficiently writing and communicating ideas is also a really useful skill. That said, doing leet code to build your Datastructures and Algorithms knowledge is definitely helpful. But we are way past that point with the current Leet Code culture between companies and interviewees

[@doc8527]

Based on my own experience, my upset part of the current status is that huge amount of ex-faang ppl are typically weak, comparing to last decade. They used to be the strongest of strongest, a lot of my CS heroes were mostly work in faang during the 05 - 14/15ish era. Also, huge amount of leetcode people appear to have no interests in computer science other a pay check, which is fine. But there must be a balance, I just felt like it could hurt the entire industry in a long term. Many people from SF just keep talking about leetcode, salary and stock options, many got pissed off when you said something CS (except leetcode) outside of the job. I don't know the solution, I also think people should have a simple understand of the runtime of your code in Big O. They don't really appear to understand the fundamental data structure other than apply them into the leetcode.

[@MugiwaraNoReemy]

So whats the solution?? What should software developers do?? Especially with the rise of LLM and agent AI?

[@VuLinhAssassin]

Programmers are people whose jobs are easier than what they had been interviewed with. I work in a medium size company, and whenever my manager asks me to interview a candidate, I usually ask them anything except leetcode coding

[@TheMidnightillusion]

What do you ask them/get them to do instead?

[@VuLinhAssassin]

@@TheMidnightillusion Their work experience and how they solved a particular situation

[@CaptainToadUK]

25 years ago I had an interview which included a variant of "sort items in alphabetical order", the wrinkle being it was using pen and paper, no computer. I quickly devised something and wrote it down, then finished up and left. I realised in the way home that my algorithm didn't really do that. "Oh well", I thought, "won't get that one". I got the job. First day, I said, "that code of mine didn't do what you wanted, how come I got the job?" They replied "You were the only candidate who tried" The moral being, it doesn't have to be the most amazing code (or even work) if you can explain your thinking clearly.