6 ms·

For that kind of seniority/experience, what fraction of companies asked LeetCodey stuff? Was it easy or medium/hard problems? How much time did you have to spen

For that kind of seniority/experience, what fraction of companies asked LeetCodey stuff? Was it easy or medium/hard problems? How much time did you have to spend preparing/practicing?

adamcharnock 4y ago
Not the OP, but with similar experience levels and I’ve never done a LeetCode interview, and even regular interviews are pretty light. I mostly contract though, and they generally offer me full time after a little while if I want it.
- Jenk 4y ago
  Also not OP, and also similar experience. Most of my interviews are an hour or two of conversation, sometimes with a "I've been told I have to ask.. " techy question but never involves any actual code/whiteboard. Several times the interviewer has said something to the effect of "I won't insult you by asking you to do a tech test, it's clear to me that you understand the work" or similar. One occassion (some years ago now) I've replied to a request to complete a tech test with a "Would you rather look at my open source code/contributions?" which they did and I didn't need to perform the test.
  - ARandomerDude 4y ago
    Not quite as experienced as you (I’m in the 10-15 year bracket). I never ask LeetCode questions because it’s far easier on both sides to ask experience-based questions like “what do you like/dislike about <technology on your resume>?” If I get superficial answers that tells me something. If i get well thought-out answers from people who have clearly spent time in the trenches that tells me something too.
    - Jenk 4y ago
      Yes, I'm exactly the same.
    - CWuestefeld 4y ago
      I've been doing this for 30+ years, and I've found the same. It's not just whether the candidate can answer correctly, but how they answer. Back when I was doing C/C++ interviews, I'd ask questions like: What's the difference between single and double quotes? A meh candidate answers something about you need single quotes for just a single character. A good candidate answers about how the data type for a double-quoted constant is a char. If I want to pass a variable into a function, and have its value changed by the function, what do I do?* A lousy candidate says "put an ampersand in front of it". A meh candidate says to pass a pointer to the variable. The best candidate will talk about the difference between call-by-value versus call-by-reference. People really do reveal a lot about themselves not just in what they say, but the way they say it.
      - jenscow 4y ago
        Both great questions, where the answer will give you a level of knowledge, rather than a yes/no. (personally, I would be a meh candidate until you probed further - but I've not touched C for.. hmm, I'm old) I often get questions where I need to determine if they're looking the textbook answer, or a real-life answer. Usually I will go with "well generally, the answer is $Textbook. However, ..."
      - CWuestefeld 4y ago
        I just realized that my above model answer gets broken by the formatter. the first question should get answered with char-star, that is, pointer to char.
        ARandomerDude 4y ago
        This is why I don't use C. ;)
        Izkata 4y ago
        If you put a backslash in front of the asterisk it should be kept as-is instead of triggering the formatting.
      - MaxBarraclough 4y ago
    - kubami 4y ago
      Exactly this! I haven't been interviewed for a long time now, but since the beginning of my career, when I have interviewed people I ask deeper questions. Even with tech tests, I use them as a jumping board for diving deeper into language design, tradeoffs and experiences. Even a trivial, reverse-a-string kind of questions can take you deep into candidate's knowledge.
- century19 4y ago
  Contracting interviews are nothing like FAANG though, I literally had one that was a 30m chat with a couple of softball questions. Compared to FAANG they are all a walk in the park and barely need any prep.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    I give contractors a coding question related to the job. Unlike LeetCode, it isn’t really challenging (not even fizzbuz), just a test that they can learn a few APIs (that are given descriptions) and write down code. You’d be surprised how many candidates freak out at that point. Unfortunately, it’s often needed for the role.
- amenghra 4y ago
  Not everyone can do this, but if you can manage to first do contract work, IMHO it's win-win for both parties. From the company's point of view: senior engineers are very expensive -- having a contract period lowers risk. From the employee's point of view: you get a good idea of what the company is doing / what your exact role would be before you commit. In theory, it's at will employment yada yada. But in practice, it makes a difference.
- thefreeman 4y ago
  How do you find contract opportunities? Is it the same as regular job searching? Do you use a firm? Do you apply to full time job posts but say you prefer contract to hire once you have an interview?
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    For me it was opening up on LinkedIn and making myself "Open to work", recruiters were reaching out daily (or close to it).
  - mylons 4y ago
    the canonical way is reaching out to anyone in your work history that you had any sort of positive working relationship with. i just went through this exercise and saw a tip in a similar thread to ask something like this in the email, “do you know anyone who is looking for contractors?” this way you don’t create a potentially awkward situation for them where they have to say they can’t hire you. and, in my case, this led to referrals that ultimately ended up in signed contracts. there are sites online, like the whoishiring threads here. i’m running https://hourly.fyi/jobs/ https://hourly.fyi/jobs/
- mylons 4y ago
  big agree on contracting interviews being light. i’ve had about a dozen in the last year and only 2 asked technical questions. the rest were more curious about time lines and cost.
- hjajoo 4y ago
  Can you share which companies these are?
golergka 4y ago
Not OP, 15 years of commercial experience, been writing code since 95. Only two companies did something similar to LeetCode, never prepared — last time I seriously took part in programming competitions was in high school in 2004 — still easily solved everything they asked for. One of the problems was actually famous n queens — which I remembered as a problem, but didn't remember the solution for. Solved it in 40 minutes (with an uncommon solution, as interviewer later told me) anyway. Most of interesting questions had to do with system design and debugging, soft skills (also system design and debugging, but of systems made out of people instead of code) and code reviews — with me reviewing their production code. Sometimes I got pretty stupid interview questions like remembering REST spec (there isn't one) by heart, but those were companies I wouldn't want to work for anyway.
swyx 4y ago
just chiming in for others that i've had a job specifically waive a coding test because they saw me livecode in front of 2000 people and my fave amazon interview story was a guy that walked in with his laptop open to my blog saying "this is just a formality i've read your work" lol TLDR why leetcode in private when you can work in public* (*yes yes, not everyone can work in public, but i bet a fair amount of you can but havent given it a real shot)
- dahart 4y ago
  Last time I had a coding test during a job interview, I was left alone for an hour with a laptop that was screen-shared with a number of interviewers that was unknown to me. It felt a little like live coding in public but without any audible feedback. That might stress some people out I’d guess, but it felt chill to me. I did my usual thing, even used StackOverflow for some quick syntax & library tips, and finished the program (a Tetris-like game with an AI player, in Python). Got the job. It was pretty fun TBH, even with a lot of experience, I’d prefer the live-coding interview over talking through database schemas or whatever.
  - WWLink 4y ago
    That's quite a bit for an interview. How long did it take? Did they gave you code to plug a piece into? Or did you have to write the whole game?
    - dahart 4y ago
      It was a whole game from scratch in the programming language of my choice. They only specified the rules. It was keyboard and console only, btw, no graphics or controllers or sound. I took the whole hour and was mostly done when I ran out of time. I forgot to write the score keeping before the interviewer came back. The AI player was “extra credit” and I finished that, so it helped excuse my scoring oversight. It wasn’t that much or that bad, really. The setup was pretty simple, and quite doable for junior devs IMO (though full disclosure I had just left a position as a lead game programmer, so for me specifically it would have looked a little bad if I didn’t smash this particular interview question). It also helped that the problem was open-ended with extra credit features. I learned later when giving the interview myself that most people never finished the basic game, the majority never tried to write an AI player, and the interviewers were quite forgiving with their ranking & scoring - it was adaptive to the candidates. The coding part of the interview was just trying to be a bit fun and not just be pure dumb LeetCode problems. IMO it worked, I totally enjoyed the interview. The rest of the 4 hour interview included some whiteboard questions (on DB schemas, which I flubbed pretty hard) and also a lot of just talking about experiences and goals.
ryandetzel 4y ago
I went out of my way to not do leetcode so I only had one because Glassdoor was wrong. I would ask the recruiter during the initial call where I also talked about salary so as yo not waste everyone's time. I cancelled a few interviews that I later found out were leet code, not because I don't want to do them but more I think the people you end up working with are better at testing than coding, from my experience.
- bradlys 4y ago
  Was the comp comparable to FAANG and other public companies in the end or did you take a paycut?
  - ryandetzel 4y ago
    Base is higher than I was making at Twitter, but instead of RSU/ESPP it's now options which can go either way, so it's a gamble. For me, I prefer startups, but the golden handcuffs are hard to takeoff once you've had them on for a while.
  - Shocka1 4y ago
    You can make SF/Seattle/coastal money without participating in leetcode interviews. There is a fascination on this website with these cities, but you can make just as much from just about anywhere without going through this popular hazing process. It will limit the amount of opportunities offered, but there will still be opportunities regardless.

For that kind of seniority/experience, what fraction of companies asked LeetCodey stuff? Was it easy or medium/hard problems? How much time did you have to spend preparing/practicing?

adamcharnock 4y ago

Not the OP, but with similar experience levels and I’ve never done a LeetCode interview, and even regular interviews are pretty light. I mostly contract though, and they generally offer me full time after a little while if I want it.

Jenk 4y ago
Also not OP, and also similar experience. Most of my interviews are an hour or two of conversation, sometimes with a "I've been told I have to ask.. " techy question but never involves any actual code/whiteboard. Several times the interviewer has said something to the effect of "I won't insult you by asking you to do a tech test, it's clear to me that you understand the work" or similar. One occassion (some years ago now) I've replied to a request to complete a tech test with a "Would you rather look at my open source code/contributions?" which they did and I didn't need to perform the test.
- ARandomerDude 4y ago
  Not quite as experienced as you (I’m in the 10-15 year bracket). I never ask LeetCode questions because it’s far easier on both sides to ask experience-based questions like “what do you like/dislike about <technology on your resume>?” If I get superficial answers that tells me something. If i get well thought-out answers from people who have clearly spent time in the trenches that tells me something too.
  - Jenk 4y ago
    Yes, I'm exactly the same.
  - CWuestefeld 4y ago
    I've been doing this for 30+ years, and I've found the same. It's not just whether the candidate can answer correctly, but how they answer. Back when I was doing C/C++ interviews, I'd ask questions like: What's the difference between single and double quotes? A meh candidate answers something about you need single quotes for just a single character. A good candidate answers about how the data type for a double-quoted constant is a char. If I want to pass a variable into a function, and have its value changed by the function, what do I do?* A lousy candidate says "put an ampersand in front of it". A meh candidate says to pass a pointer to the variable. The best candidate will talk about the difference between call-by-value versus call-by-reference. People really do reveal a lot about themselves not just in what they say, but the way they say it.
    - jenscow 4y ago
      Both great questions, where the answer will give you a level of knowledge, rather than a yes/no. (personally, I would be a meh candidate until you probed further - but I've not touched C for.. hmm, I'm old) I often get questions where I need to determine if they're looking the textbook answer, or a real-life answer. Usually I will go with "well generally, the answer is $Textbook. However, ..."
    - CWuestefeld 4y ago
      I just realized that my above model answer gets broken by the formatter. the first question should get answered with char-star, that is, pointer to char.
      - ARandomerDude 4y ago
        This is why I don't use C. ;)
      - Izkata 4y ago
        If you put a backslash in front of the asterisk it should be kept as-is instead of triggering the formatting.
    - MaxBarraclough 4y ago
  - kubami 4y ago
    Exactly this! I haven't been interviewed for a long time now, but since the beginning of my career, when I have interviewed people I ask deeper questions. Even with tech tests, I use them as a jumping board for diving deeper into language design, tradeoffs and experiences. Even a trivial, reverse-a-string kind of questions can take you deep into candidate's knowledge.
century19 4y ago
Contracting interviews are nothing like FAANG though, I literally had one that was a 30m chat with a couple of softball questions. Compared to FAANG they are all a walk in the park and barely need any prep.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  I give contractors a coding question related to the job. Unlike LeetCode, it isn’t really challenging (not even fizzbuz), just a test that they can learn a few APIs (that are given descriptions) and write down code. You’d be surprised how many candidates freak out at that point. Unfortunately, it’s often needed for the role.
amenghra 4y ago
Not everyone can do this, but if you can manage to first do contract work, IMHO it's win-win for both parties. From the company's point of view: senior engineers are very expensive -- having a contract period lowers risk. From the employee's point of view: you get a good idea of what the company is doing / what your exact role would be before you commit. In theory, it's at will employment yada yada. But in practice, it makes a difference.
thefreeman 4y ago
How do you find contract opportunities? Is it the same as regular job searching? Do you use a firm? Do you apply to full time job posts but say you prefer contract to hire once you have an interview?
- antisthenes 4y ago
  For me it was opening up on LinkedIn and making myself "Open to work", recruiters were reaching out daily (or close to it).
- mylons 4y ago
  the canonical way is reaching out to anyone in your work history that you had any sort of positive working relationship with. i just went through this exercise and saw a tip in a similar thread to ask something like this in the email, “do you know anyone who is looking for contractors?” this way you don’t create a potentially awkward situation for them where they have to say they can’t hire you. and, in my case, this led to referrals that ultimately ended up in signed contracts. there are sites online, like the whoishiring threads here. i’m running https://hourly.fyi/jobs/ https://hourly.fyi/jobs/
mylons 4y ago
big agree on contracting interviews being light. i’ve had about a dozen in the last year and only 2 asked technical questions. the rest were more curious about time lines and cost.
hjajoo 4y ago
Can you share which companies these are?

golergka 4y ago

Not OP, 15 years of commercial experience, been writing code since 95. Only two companies did something similar to LeetCode, never prepared — last time I seriously took part in programming competitions was in high school in 2004 — still easily solved everything they asked for. One of the problems was actually famous n queens — which I remembered as a problem, but didn't remember the solution for. Solved it in 40 minutes (with an uncommon solution, as interviewer later told me) anyway. Most of interesting questions had to do with system design and debugging, soft skills (also system design and debugging, but of systems made out of people instead of code) and code reviews — with me reviewing their production code. Sometimes I got pretty stupid interview questions like remembering REST spec (there isn't one) by heart, but those were companies I wouldn't want to work for anyway.

swyx 4y ago

just chiming in for others that i've had a job specifically waive a coding test because they saw me livecode in front of 2000 people and my fave amazon interview story was a guy that walked in with his laptop open to my blog saying "this is just a formality i've read your work" lol TLDR why leetcode in private when you can work in public* (*yes yes, not everyone can work in public, but i bet a fair amount of you can but havent given it a real shot)

dahart 4y ago
Last time I had a coding test during a job interview, I was left alone for an hour with a laptop that was screen-shared with a number of interviewers that was unknown to me. It felt a little like live coding in public but without any audible feedback. That might stress some people out I’d guess, but it felt chill to me. I did my usual thing, even used StackOverflow for some quick syntax & library tips, and finished the program (a Tetris-like game with an AI player, in Python). Got the job. It was pretty fun TBH, even with a lot of experience, I’d prefer the live-coding interview over talking through database schemas or whatever.
- WWLink 4y ago
  That's quite a bit for an interview. How long did it take? Did they gave you code to plug a piece into? Or did you have to write the whole game?
  - dahart 4y ago
    It was a whole game from scratch in the programming language of my choice. They only specified the rules. It was keyboard and console only, btw, no graphics or controllers or sound. I took the whole hour and was mostly done when I ran out of time. I forgot to write the score keeping before the interviewer came back. The AI player was “extra credit” and I finished that, so it helped excuse my scoring oversight. It wasn’t that much or that bad, really. The setup was pretty simple, and quite doable for junior devs IMO (though full disclosure I had just left a position as a lead game programmer, so for me specifically it would have looked a little bad if I didn’t smash this particular interview question). It also helped that the problem was open-ended with extra credit features. I learned later when giving the interview myself that most people never finished the basic game, the majority never tried to write an AI player, and the interviewers were quite forgiving with their ranking & scoring - it was adaptive to the candidates. The coding part of the interview was just trying to be a bit fun and not just be pure dumb LeetCode problems. IMO it worked, I totally enjoyed the interview. The rest of the 4 hour interview included some whiteboard questions (on DB schemas, which I flubbed pretty hard) and also a lot of just talking about experiences and goals.

ryandetzel 4y ago

I went out of my way to not do leetcode so I only had one because Glassdoor was wrong. I would ask the recruiter during the initial call where I also talked about salary so as yo not waste everyone's time. I cancelled a few interviews that I later found out were leet code, not because I don't want to do them but more I think the people you end up working with are better at testing than coding, from my experience.

bradlys 4y ago
Was the comp comparable to FAANG and other public companies in the end or did you take a paycut?
- ryandetzel 4y ago
  Base is higher than I was making at Twitter, but instead of RSU/ESPP it's now options which can go either way, so it's a gamble. For me, I prefer startups, but the golden handcuffs are hard to takeoff once you've had them on for a while.
- Shocka1 4y ago
  You can make SF/Seattle/coastal money without participating in leetcode interviews. There is a fascination on this website with these cities, but you can make just as much from just about anywhere without going through this popular hazing process. It will limit the amount of opportunities offered, but there will still be opportunities regardless.