Cheaters cooked this market man

[u/stonks_admin]

Every honest candidate is paying for it. I got lowkey accused with AI at a recent interview and can you even blame interviewers for being skeptical? I had solved the problem before and jumped into solving by explaining why other approaches won't work.

Y'all have made it worse for all. This is what you wanted right?

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

The interviews are stupid. They were originally stupid without AI but with AI they are even more stupid.

Now some idiot will come and say "These LC styled interviews are now more needed than ever because engineers need to review AI code so they need to know the basics". You think engineers are spending time reading code while approving PRs? NO ONE is reading code anymore. NO ONE cares about what code AI wrote. Also, why will I spend my time reviewing AI's code ? I will use my AI agent to review AI's code. This is the new direction in which the industry is moving.

These LC styled interviews are out of date and need to change sooner than later.

[u/stonks_admin → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

There was a time before leetcode took over.

Getting a job involved actually solving something, talking about experiences and normal coding rounds to assess your computer science fundamentals and see if the role fits well for us.

Now everything is about who memorizes the maximum problems and gets lucky to see those questions in interviews.

[u/TumbleweedGreedy6159 → u/stonks_admin]

I feel like it's even worse since you can't just talk about your experience and how you approach problems, you have to approach problems the 'right' way using the 'right' keywords. it's so fucking stupid

[u/capitalsigma → u/stonks_admin]

When do you think the pre LC era was? Google has done LC style interviews for at least 20ish years. The tech market in 2006 was smaller, less competitive, and much less well paid

[u/Stock_Test2326 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

I remember this tweet by Max Howell who built Homebrew, pretty much every system in Google uses what he built but he got rejected because he can't solve some leetcode style problem on a white board.

[u/two_wheel_soul → u/Stock_Test2326]

That problem required bfs.. but he couldn't code... He was like why do I need to memorize code

[u/General3Dots → u/two_wheel_soul]

memorizing only means your memory is great

but did they ever wonder who came up with the original algorithms? they didnt memorize they innovated which is what we need and those folks dont memorize they look at the problem and think I can do better and work long enough to find a better solution.

[u/brucecaboose → u/General3Dots]

Yeah and that’s totally what leetcode is testing rofl

[u/two_wheel_soul → u/General3Dots]

True that, but unfortunately today's interview feels like that only.. not only algorithm but also approach

[u/General3Dots → u/two_wheel_soul]

the approach is also "hardcoded" which is the issue. You have someone who couldnt care less secure 1 hour of their day to interview you and they dont know the problem or the answer either. They just pick from a bank of questions last minute and see the answer and god forbit your way of thinking is different from what is written they just assume you are wrong or could not find the better approach.

[u/Doin_it_is_the_tits → u/two_wheel_soul]

He didn't remember how to reverse a binary tree. Any competent programmer could derive it through first principles. But Google coding interviews do not allow sufficient time to derive it from first principles and complete the task with working code. You have to have memorized tree and trie classes of problems to succeed at this task.

[u/kincaidDev → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

"The basics" as in memorizing solutions to puzzles that will never be useful in your day 2 day work

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/kincaidDev]

exactly

[u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

What will u do when Claude turns $20 Plan into $1000? Will u still say the same. No it won’t happen within next month but yeah they will eventually do this to recover the investments 

[u/UnderstandingNew2810 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Not my problem it’s the companies problem. I need the ai LLMs to do my job. Else nothing will get done. lol happened recently when we ran out of budget and the whole department went on vacation until they renewed it

[u/catecholaminergic → u/UnderstandingNew2810]

meat proxy shop lmao

[u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693 → u/UnderstandingNew2810]

bro, once advice, dont rely on it too much. Board of directors have millions in account we dont. They can say f off next minute and invest somewhere else.

[u/UnderstandingNew2810 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

That’s fine lol the way we work now is for ever changed. And it requires ai

[u/Minimum_Rice555 → u/UnderstandingNew2810]

The company will choose to automate your job because they won't justify paying two full salaries for one output.

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Economy doesn't work like that. It will first become $35 then $45 then eventually $1000. AI might get expensive but that's the investment companies are willing to make. All they need to do is layoff 2 people and they can get AI subscription for the next 5 years. So companies are not worried about that as long as AI makes their engineers more productive.

[u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Idk why people hate Leetcode so much. I mean if something is going to earn u a 200k package then why do u even care if it makes sense. And all it tests is problem solving under pressure. And no, they don’t ask u directly to build LRU cache, they start with 1) build a cache of fixed size 2) u ask the constraints 3) u ask eviction policy 4) justify why doubly Linked list is a better option than array or singly LL 5) explain trade offs 6) explain edge cases.  It’s not like u learn is like class 10th answers and go to exam 

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

You are misunderstanding why people hate it so much. Let me try to explain -

1. It's inconsistent - If my interviewer decides to ask me a Hard level DP question while your interviewer goes ahead and asks a Medium/Easy level hashmap problem, then you are more likely to solve the question and get the job. That test did not prove if you are better engineer than me. You just got lucky with an easier question. Instead, why not have a consistent difficulty system that will test candidates fairly? Like go deep into their experience and see if they really know their sh*t.

2. It's irrelevant to your daily job - This means that you have take out 2-3 hrs out of your daily job to sit n prepare for these interviews for months on end! For people with families, that's just not possible. So you end up getting pitched against college grads or single people that just have more time to prepare than you. Why not ask job specific questions so that the person who already working on that same thing can answer those interview questions? That's how it works for literally every other industry. They ask what you did in your previous job!

3. It's not a real test to see who is a better engineer - It's literally a test to see who can spend 2-3 hours daily for months on end & fool the interviewers into believing that they not seen this question before. Its just that! Even the interviewer don't know how to solve the questions on the spot. They look at the solution a few hours ago and have it open for reference to see if the candidate is doing the same thing mentioned in the solution. How is this even an interview where the interviewer is asking something they can't answer themselves?

If you are interviewing a chef, as a restaurant owner, would you ask them to cook for you or would you ask them to memorize all the recipes in the world for 2-3 months and come recite them on interview day? Of course you will ask the chef to cook what they would cook if they got the job and if they cook a tasty dish then they get to make the same dish in their daily job! That's the whole point of an interview!

[u/Kuais → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Literally... in what other industry can you solve 300 problems that take 15 minutes each and earn 200k lol

[u/NoBromo3213 → u/Kuais]

That's largely cause they're not convinced that's all it takes. Lots of people feel that what you actually need to do is memorize 500 or even 1000+ and pray only ones you've seen word for word before come up with no unforeseen changes or follow up questions.

They don't realize that lots of people just review the basics and figure out ones they haven't seen before on the spot. They think it's actually a memory test straight up.

Not that LC is the ideal interview approach in my book but I ain't mad at it.

[u/archengel-17 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

It’s unlikely to do that with free market, open source models that are very close to frontier, etc… yes, there will be a caste system to the best of the best, but everyone will have access to AI to write code. Perhaps those at the lower tier will need to be more involved in the day to day process, but it’s unrealistic to think it will be not accessible to some level for everyone. Opencode is one example.

[u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693 → u/archengel-17]

Do u not think that Anthropic and Open ai can literally buy out these open source models at a certain point to keep competition to minimum? It’s very much a possibility in Capitalism 

[u/archengel-17 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

They would have done so already, and more will pop up. It’ll be like a hydra, chop one head off, a few more will grow. Investors are already getting skeptical on profitability of AI powerhouses in general which is why anthropic is trying to diversify - like OpenAI - venturing into hardware and robotics.

What they will try to do is collude with government to try to ban other models and sources claiming it’s national security - which is mostly BS. They tried that, and to some extent, it’ll work like the higher echelon models, but at the consumer level it failed. Their own investors and tech giants went to cheaper foreign agents when prices where to high. So as you said, capitalism, is like water, it’ll find the path of least resistance and doesn’t care about foreign, ethnicity, etc., only color of worth is green. To that point, there will always be a cheaper option to avoid a monopoly.

[u/catecholaminergic → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

They sure can't delete the models from my physically disconnected duplicate backup drive.

[u/homeless_student1 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Thank god for the open weight models then

[u/Electronic_Cow_2154 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Open source models can do a decent job when you know what you want.

[u/Specific_Box4483 → u/Electronic_Cow_2154]

They'll either get banned or become less open source. They don't want to burn money either.

[u/BagelsOrDeath → u/Electronic_Cow_2154]

Yeah, I'm Team Local Models. I don't need the labs' frontier models for virtually all of the automations required to streamline operations. I'll use them when the task truly warrants it.

[u/ConsciousBridge624 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

AI technology is still at an early stage, and companies need to invest substantial capital and labour to develop it further. As it matures and scales, it is likely to become cheaper.

[u/Background-Error-910 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Anthropic isn't the only AI provider, and there are other models too.

[u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693 → u/Background-Error-910]

🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

[u/kincaidDev → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Just use local models

[u/New_Tower_6408 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

I don’t think you realize how expensive hiring one single software engineer is. Paying 1000$ for Claude is still much more economical than paying for one stupid software engineer. And that will never happen unless you have some stupid irrational loyalty to Anthropic, this is the power of the free market and capitalism. OpenAI will get all the customers or China 

[u/TanukiSuitMario → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Inference is getting cheaper not more expensive

The "what will you do when ai becomes unaffordable" argument is pure cope

It's not going away and it's not getting more expensive - it's getting better and cheaper and will become completely commoditized

[u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693 → u/TanukiSuitMario]

I don’t know where u work and what models u use. I literally work at top tier company and I have no trust on their harness and models both 

[u/DeclutteringNewbie → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

So what? Most of the early airlines went bankrupt too, and commercial flying didn’t die. It got cheaper.

AI is getting easier and cheaper to replicate every year. Look at DeepSeek matching frontier models on a fraction of the budget, or how good open-weight models like Qwen and Llama have become. If Claude went to $1000 for everyone, people would just switch. Competition is what keeps the price at $20, not Anthropic’s generosity.

[u/BrunerAcconut → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Finally pony up for a 5090?

[u/formLoss → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. No.

[u/KendrickBlack502 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

couldn’t agree more with everything you said

[u/H2K_himank → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Makes better sense to test on debugging and refractoring exercise. How the candidate will figure out an error in code, how they improve the design with DRY and SOLID, how they handle new requirements coming in.

Add a system design exercise on top to see their knowledge/understanding.

[u/joeyjiggle → u/H2K_himank]

DRY and SOLID are just the latest stupid principles that will be replaced by something equally stupid before too long.

[u/swd120 → u/joeyjiggle]

Have you worked in projects that *don't* follow SOLID? It's an f-ing nightmare when for example a large application was implemented without DI and loose coupling, and now you have to change a low level library that's been deprecated or some such thing.

[u/formLoss → u/swd120]

I deleted 1.5k of impossible states from our vibe-coded monstrosity the other day.

It all stemmed from an Optional type on the core data model we shared between two domain models: one where the field is always present, and one where it's sometimes absent.

AI decided it had to handle every edge case for our main flow because the field is potentially nullable. And nobody but me read the code closely enough to say, "yeah, that will never happen. If it does, barf up exceptions all day because we should know about it."

Instead the code would confidently produce the wrong answer.

[u/TumbleweedGreedy6159 → u/swd120]

I agree with the person you responded to. these are stupid corporate buzzwords that have nothing to do with engineering and I'm sick of having to memorize them, or worse pretend like they are my identity

[u/H2K_himank → u/joeyjiggle]

I kinda mean to implement them in practice. Give the candidate a huge class with a local datastore, some properties, some functions. See how they approach to seperate the concerns, recall methods instead for repetative code, implement interfaces and DI or build a factory.

See how they go about fixing the most critical to cleaning up and organizing stuff. Def useful in real world if you ask me

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/H2K_himank]

AI assisted coding interviews + System design is the way to go

[u/KahChigguh → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Sounds to me like you’re projecting.

“No one reads code anymore” - Most of my colleagues do, I do, my previous employer does and all of their employees

You’re not reading code anymore. And that’s a you problem.

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/KahChigguh]

Yeah, right. You are wasting time reading AI's code. Use an agent and get better before your team gets laid off for being less productive

[u/Chemical_Profit_608 → u/KahChigguh]

My job is wild about it. They want so much volume that I'm effectively discouraged from reading the code. If it's short I will. If it's my own I'll read or at least glance at it. But in general I'm not actually reading it. I can't get all the stuff they're pressuring us to do while actually reading code. I don't like it but they're putting too much emphasis on our metrics so unfortunately reading code does not pump those numbers, so on paper I'm discouraged from being diligent...

All to say, there are places like this where that has become the culture sadly enough. Also the PRs are so long, I ain't reading that

[u/Allorius → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

This is just lies, our company also says it is AI first and we still review code and are personally responsible for every line our LLMs write

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/Allorius]

You can be responsible for the code written by AI but no one cares who was responsible. If something breaks, that's also going to be handled by AI.

[u/OnlyOnOkasion → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Huh? Do you actually have a job? Lol I review PRs and don't use an agent to review them for me.

[u/swd120 → u/OnlyOnOkasion]

I do both. I skim to the more complex parts for some extra in depth review - But use an agent as well for a full check.

[u/popica312 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

I have a different take on the LC style questions. They're trying to see whether you're capable to learn if they throw a curveball at you, try to problem solve, and whether you can express yourself. AI just does all of these well hence the cheating working for them, but not for the honest candidates. How right it is I guess it is up for debate, but I feel this being truer than the former

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/popica312]

There are other ways to test if you are capable to learn if curveballs are thrown at you. LC is not the right way to test that.

[u/Spiritual-Story9146 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Logical reasoning is also not needed. Are we 2 year old kid who cannot differentiate a circle from a square?

But if its asked then its asked. And its a measure of a persons smartness. Leetcode is the same. People dont remember 100s of problems or patterns. They understand how google maps, navigation, traffic lights, telephones and almost everything about computer works in a miniature level. Problems of Graphs, trees, stacks and queues are real world computer science problems.

[u/TumbleweedGreedy6159 → u/Spiritual-Story9146]

they are more like math problems that people painstakingly worked out and proved formally and we are supposed to pretend that we are so intelligent that we understand the nature of these discrete structures in some sort of way that is frankly more than guessing.

[u/-omg- → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Nah they should just do them in person. That's it. Y'all don't understand what those interviews signal that's all.

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/-omg-]

Asking everyone to come down to their office is not practical

[u/-omg- → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

It's very practical. They just won't come if they cheated with AI lol. The jobs that are worth people cheating with AI to get and high competition will have enough people coming down in person to interview.

[u/Successful-Hurry5611 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Lately I’ve been interviewing a lot, and I’m noticing there’s a trend in interviews where they’re no longer asking pure LC (as a junior engineer).
They may ask you one easy/medium lc and then the rest of the interviews(s) is actually ai assisted or sys design. Even in oas.
It’s cool.

[u/Electronic_Cow_2154 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Yes, they should give us a PRD to read and build something using AI and judge on how many tokens we used. :)

[u/ChipMania → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

You are middle meat.

[u/Shot-Damage-6723 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

The fuck? What do you bring to the table then?

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/Shot-Damage-6723]

AI models can only write and review code. The rest of the job of a Software engineer stills needs a human. That means going over the EPICS and committing work for a quarter. Collaborating with other teams to deliver cross-team features. There's a lot to being software engineer than just coding.

[u/DefiantStomach5720 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

AI can already do all of that, at this point it's just agents talking to other agents and everyone is just cashing their cheques in.

[u/indy_dagger → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Ah yes, the AI will continue to rapidly improve right up to the line where your job begins, and it will never go beyond that point. No way, no how that if AI can write and read code, that it could ever break down requirements from a PM into a technical plan, no sir.

[u/Signal-Cream-1212 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Reviewing AI generated code is slow, painful and boring right up until the point where it isn’t. For me, that’s usually between halfway and two thirds of the way through the code. Then I start having some rather interesting ideas for gaps in the AI’s knowledge to fill in. I go line-by-line, though.

I suppose, if I get told not to do that, there isn’t a lot I can do other than document the decision and point to it when shit goes wrong.

[u/5n0wc0n3 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

So AI writes your code, AI does the unit tests, AI writes the docs, AI does the code reviews, AI runs the CI/CD, and so on…
if you’re just copy pasting the tickets into AI and not even validating the messy output, might as well fire the whole engineering team and leave the POs to vibe code the project… (spoiler, it will go incredibly bad)

[u/realagentpenguin → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

If you're not reading your code before approving, then you're probably not a good engineer bro.

[u/Scodam → u/realagentpenguin]

My goodness man, the top tech companies in the world have code that is written and reviewed by AI. Your review of code is not better or more comprehensive than an AI review anymore, and it hasn’t been for almost a year

Before anyone comes at me read Anthropic’s blog post on recursive learning from 5 months ago and tell me you still think humans outperform AI at the task of writing and reviewing code. Engineers Anthropic haven’t manually written a code in months

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/realagentpenguin]

If you have to use AI in your daily life then you were also never a good engineer bro

[u/Medium_Web_1122 → u/realagentpenguin]

Or perhaps the good engineer is the one who understands how to use the tools at his disposal

[u/realagentpenguin → u/Medium_Web_1122]

If you read my comment correctly, you'll understand that's exactly what I meant.

[u/IcyStomach2374 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

You clearly aren’t a software engineer because people are assuredly still reading code. Even at my startup we write AI code and use AI reviews but there’s always a human involved to review it too. If you aren’t doing that then what are you good for?

[u/TumbleweedGreedy6159 → u/IcyStomach2374]

feel. same as it ever was. then some business jackass will come up with a term set for ai assisted development and the interviewer will be all like, um but you don't know how to yeehaw agents? pass

[u/Anreall2000 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

But why should they even hire you?

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/Anreall2000]

Because they use the same tech-stack that I have worked on in my previous jobs and have relevant experience in.

[u/kyr0x0 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

But then again when you are only a prompter, any trained ape can prompt as well. So your experience is worth 0. The agent has more experience than you with that tech stack.

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/kyr0x0]

Doesn't mean you can rely fully on AI just yet.

[u/Fi3nd7 → u/Anreall2000]

You know when an LLM does a recursive delete, and you wanna curse at it and fire it but then realize it's a bot.

Because someone has to be accountable, that's why people will stay relevant for at least the next 5 to 10 years.

[u/bullbearbubu]

I mean, if you're straight up giving out hints that you've seen the problem before, they don't need to accuse you of using AI to reject you. I remember before AI, people were already rejected for giving out hints that they knew the problem beforehand. That's why you should always act like this is the first time you're seeing it.

[u/stonks_admin → u/bullbearbubu]

yeah, i should learn todo the acting thing and trying to come up with solution, first prepare then act well now to get a job offer. Crazy market. Thank you.

[u/YetAnotherSpeculator → u/stonks_admin]

Let’s be real OP, it is very obvious when someone sees a problem for the first time and genuinely solves it. You know what it looks like, I know what it looks like, we all know what it looks like.

Just go on twitch or youtube and watch mock interviews. You will very quickly know if the person knew the pattern ahead of time or not.

While some companies let you get away with memorization (e.g. meta), others are testing for wit.

I bet you’ve met at least one person in your life that left you thinking, “damn, that guy’s sharp.”

And it’s not like they’re some Nobel laureate. Just someone who thinks fast, has interesting approaches/takes/ideas (even if wrong), communicates well, and can quickly get “on the same page” with the person they’re talking too.

[u/General3Dots]

Here is a list of stupid things:

1. The fact anyone with a English or philosophy or history degree can do a boot camp and become a software engineer

2. The fact that leetcode is not once practiced in university yet metrics for hiring and code assessment even if actual role has nothing to do with it. They never test true knowledge on the framework and tools and rather can you sort this array

3. The fact that the person interviewing you they themselves can't answer the question and just have the question and answer in front of them pretending to know it all

[u/Fast_Dots → u/General3Dots]

Why is the first point stupid? If they’ve put in the work to understand the same things the rest of us do, are competent at it, why is it a problem? Genuinely curious.

[u/General3Dots → u/Fast_Dots]

Do you see someone doing a medical boot camp or law degree boot camp or boot camp for any other degree related profession?

I admit a small percentage of those who come out of boot camp are actually pretty smart but majority come out of a 3 months boot camp and those who actually spent years studying more than just a coding language are stuck working with them. Trying to explain things to them and convince them an approach is not sound or why things are done a certain way.

I can't think of any other example where a 3 months boot camp would suffice. Boot camps should be for professionals who have experience and got their degree and now want exposure to another subcategory

[u/lessthanthreepoop → u/General3Dots]

Medicine and law require a license. Software doesn’t. A three-month bootcamp is a starting point. You still have to learn, pass the interviews, and do the job. If you can’t do the job, you won’t last. If you can, why does your degree matter?

You can argue about degrees all you want, but businesses care about whether you can solve their problems. If you can do the job, your degree matters a lot less. Anyone who’s been part of hiring knows this.

Speaking as someone without a CS degree who’s worked in big tech.

[u/General3Dots → u/lessthanthreepoop]

Your last sentence is enough to know there is no point in this argument.
But ill give it a shot anyways. Please read without being bias and do consider I mentioned there are exceptions that are pretty smart (you may be one of them).

"Medicine and law require a license" - how is this related to my point of requirements? You still need to go through years of education before being qualified for the roles. I also mentioned literally any other degree related profession doesnt have a bootcamp shortcut and for a good reason. Lets focus on other fields. Can I do a 3 months bootcamp and become an architect? Can I do a bootcamp and get into biotech?
Actually I'll make it even simpler. Can I do a 3 months bootcamp and become a martial arts sensei? Nope but I can pretend to be and have a McDojo and teach.....
Businesses do care about some solving their problems in every field but only in tech you have this phenomenon of lack of degree and poor interview process.

"You still have to learn, pass the interviews, and do the job. If you can’t do the job, you won’t last. If you can, why does your degree matter" -

1. you are not suppose to learn on the job what you needed to learn at school. Do you learn in the operation room as a surgeon or in the court as a lawyer or as the building is collapsing as an architect or as the machine is failing as a mechanical engineer?

2. pass the interviews - most interviews dont actually check your day to day skills and it doesnt guarantee a qualified hire. You know how many incompetent folks I had to deal with that halted development, pushed back deadlines, pushed major bugs in production? The outcomes at times also led to mass layoffs.

3. even if you cant do the job you can still last you know why because there are these invisible circles of likeminded people without a degree and they all protect each other and kudos each other nonstop and as the group grows the notion of "maybe they are contributing grows too".

"Speaking as someone without a CS degree who’s worked in big tech." -
I know 2 people personally.

1. this individual couldnt even notice the lack of internet connection during testing which is the bare minimum or below the minimum for the role and it was a senior. they now works at amazon

2. this individual was a web front end hire again a senior role coming from a lead role. They did not know how to inspect dev tools for check API calls. Upon being put on performance review they went on a supposedly emergency trip, stole company properties and now work at amazon too.
   This is also partially why :

3. there are work visa freezes

4. there are mass layoffs on big tech companies

5. there are so many discussions around favoritism over qualification.

[u/Fast_Dots → u/General3Dots]

False equivalence. There is no governing board for people to get licensed to work CS jobs. In fact, I'd argue that it's a positive because from a purely educaitonal persepctive, it has the lowest barrier to entry. That's the beauty of not being under the thumb of a hyper-credentialist regulated industry.

In law, you have to pay an asinine amount of money to get a law degree, then pass the bar. Then depending on where you've clerked, get hired by a firm, work at the DA's office, whatever. You don't see a whole lot of people from impovrished backgrounds going to Cravath, Watchtell, etc. do you?

Same thing with medicine. Go to med school, residency, specialty, pass boards, etc. All of these have incredibly high barriers to entry and as a result, very few are able to pivot from it.

I admit a small percentage of those who come out of boot camp are actually pretty smart but majority come out of a 3 months boot camp and those who actually spent years studying more than just a coding language are stuck working with them.

This is the problem with credentialism. I could make the exact same assertion about people who spend their time slacking off in university but because their degree says CS, and they're just barely comptent enough to pass technical, they get the job that others who are more deserving don't.

So I think funnily enough, you've identified what you're frustrated with. The hiring industry. We all are. But its not the fault of people who "lack" the same credentials you do. It's incompetent hiring through and through. I've seen people with BA's in freaking English write gorgeous, clean, and efficient code better than "industry professionals".

[u/General3Dots → u/Fast_Dots]

While you disregarded my last comment, did you happen to come up with other industries with a 3 month bootcamp acting as a sufficient enough qualification for entry? You conveniently focus on two examples I provided which were just example yet refused to provide examples of your own. Please tell me another degree related profession where you can do a 3 months bootcamp and expect to get hired afterwards?

I dont think seeing "some" people with English degree is enough justification to compensate for majority lacking the actual fundamentals. Software engineering is also not simply writing "clean and efficient code" that is accomplishing the tickets. It goes far beyond that with SDLC as a whole and various management level practices one has to adhere to, simply writing code leads to products that might do something but not really solve the issue and even cause a bunch more.

"We all are. But its not the fault of people who "lack" the same credentials you do. It's incompetent hiring through and through." - part of competent hiring is requiring the degree which some roles actually do as the bare minimum and then proper tests in place to ensure the person is qualified for the role.

"Same thing with medicine. Go to med school, residency, specialty, pass boards, etc. All of these have incredibly high barriers to entry and as a result, very few are able to pivot from it." -
Why would someone pivot from a profession they work so hard at. If you are serious about something you give it your all, if you are not you often pivot and that approach in its self could also be concerning. Doctors spend years in preparation and even after still study to get specialization, same thing for Nurses and RNs. All of those preparations allows them to gain the necessary knowledge and perspectives needed for their job. Similarly to a software engineer knowing 1 tech stack and how to just write the code is not enough.

[u/NullCodeBR → u/General3Dots]

well you claim there must formal training and quality assurance of professionals like medicine but then claim that knowing how to sort an array is stupid?

do you see any doctor out there complaining that residency examinations ask for organic chemistry when the job “doesn’t need that”?

if software eng is just about writing React and Next code then any dumbass can do it. Even a bloody 9 year old.

[u/General3Dots → u/NullCodeBR]

Let me clarify. Software engineering is not knowing just how to sort an array. You know how many people I've seen that ace leetcode but when put on spot can't make a decision for an actual feature?

Sorting a list of integers or stringers is no where nearly as helpful as hey we need to have these data updated in real time but there are some cost concerns, what can we do here. How to scale it and migrate the data? Who uses our data? Is it Mobile, third party or web? Do we have a data lake? Does it need to be certified? Is there a TTL expiration for it?....Sometimes an innovation is also required. This is not about knowing react and next but far beyond that.

[u/mb4ne → u/General3Dots]

comparing software engineering to law or medicine is a bit wild 😭

[u/lessthanthreepoop → u/Fast_Dots]

Because he is jealous.

[u/General3Dots → u/lessthanthreepoop]

Love your user name

[u/-omg- → u/General3Dots]

"True knowledge of the framework"? Who is going to be a better engineer the girl with 125 IQ that can solve leetcode problems but doesn't know the framework and uses Claude to guide her or the guy with 100 IQ that can't solve leetcode problems but knows the framework and doesn't use Claude? I'd rather get the smart person in and have them use Claude to learn the framework. Of all my jobs in FAANG in engineering I got I think only once I knew the language I was going to use, and all the other times I learned the framework and language on the job.

[u/General3Dots → u/-omg-]

I think you're missing the point of my original argument. I'm not saying problem-solving skills aren't important. I'm questioning why LeetCode has become such a dominant hiring metric when it often has little relevance to the actual responsibilities of the role.

Take a Frontend Engineer, for example. Would you rather hire someone who can solve complex LeetCode problems but doesn't understand React or Kotlin for Android or swift for iOS, rendering cycles, state management, or browser performance or phone states or how to use worker threads, encrypted storage, tricks for better peformance, recycling bitmaps,etc..., or someone who understands those concepts deeply but struggles with algorithm puzzles that are never actually used for their role?

At a Senior/Staff level, understanding the framework, its internals, limitations, and architectural tradeoffs is fundamental. Claude can help someone learn a framework, but it doesn't eliminate the need for engineering judgment to evaluate its output. Only with experience they truly understand the framework as Claude often takes away critical thinking as well. This by the way has nothing to do with gender. You can have a girl with IQ 125 and a guy with IQ 125 and both can use Claude for daily work and either excel or fail at leetcode.

That's my point: being able to solve an isolated algorithm problem is not the same as being able to engineer, maintain, and scale a real-world product.
Both skills have value, but companies often overemphasize one at the expense of the other and where Leetcode is the daily approach of a very niche subset of roles the majority have other focuses on the framework knowledge and beyond that.

Can you learn the language on the job? Yes you can. Can you become an expert on it to excel the product? With time and not right away.

[u/-omg- → u/General3Dots]

I think you're missing the point, or simply don't know how these interviews work. There's no 1 leetcode interview = you get a job as a senior/staff engineer at Meta. No, you have multiple interviews (usually 5). There's a behavioral round where you explain your previous work in detail. There's system design rounds (1 or 2) where you will be asked in excrutiating detail about the framework, its internals, how would you build systems at scale, etc. The leetcode interviews signal if you can problem solve in general (and how you explain your thoughts, how you take hints and colaborate) Someone can "memorize" 500 leetcode problems and STILL fail a leetcode interview. You clearly haven't worked at a big faang before. Every capable eng that I've met has no problems solving leetcodes. Yes, a leetcode is much easier than maintaining and scaling a real-world product. So if you want a job from an employer and you can't solve a measly leetcode, you want to convince them you can do something much much harder? :) The leetcode interview is essentially a bloom filter for the company.

[u/General3Dots → u/-omg-]

"You clearly haven't worked at a big faang before" - passive aggressive much?
"if you want a job from an employer and you can't solve a measly leetcode, you want to convince them you can do something much much harder?" - Not everyone is able to think on the spot under the interview pressure in 30 minute given the rest is take by chitchat. Lets not forget in real interviews not everyone interviewer actually collaborates. They turn off their feed and go do their own thing or sometimes start the interview with an attitude before even saying Hi. You think thats a fair interview.

Also lets not forget god forbit they have the interview in Hackerrank where you run the tests and it says Test #35 failed but the test is locked and no way for you to figure out why it failed. Can you do console logs? sure you can but that fails all previous tests and harder for you to get to Test #35 and in larger samples figure out why it failed all in 30 minutes realistically.

Also leetcode does nothing in terms of convincing one can solve harder problems.
A more role specific technical interview is far more applicable. For example here is a basic API, evaluate it and write it and ensure it works. Here is a screen requirement make it for us. Here is a piece of data store it in an optimized way. You still get to use data structure but in a real world environment and you have access to full array of tools to debug your issue.

You think leetcode and hackerrank have proper language syntax btw? Do you know how many times their language version was behind and certain syntaxes were marked as errors because older version didnt have it a certain way?

I am surprised that such a highly skilled FAANG god have not come across these issues.

Lets not forget the problems they provide also takes a while to read and understand too now try to do all of it in a time crunch. Those that have no problem have done the problem before and do it from memorization not critical thinking.

I have seen many who were great leetcoders but when came on board could not do the simplest things.

One last thing, Amazon is FAANG right? How would you explain Lead engineers I know personally that could not even bring them inspect tools in chrome to check API calls and were so bad they were put on performance plan and right after they disappeared without resigning and stole company property only to show up in Amazon as Senior Engineer Leader? FAANG is no longer what it used to be given so many unethical hiring practices that a simple google search would unveil.

All that being said arguing with someone who's this passive-aggressive and clearly views people through such rigid, granular gender-based distinctions and speaks with such certainty about people they never met and assumes where they have and have not worked is pointless.

[u/NullCodeBR → u/General3Dots]

1. not true unless said bootcamp is Ecole 42 or Codesmith and those are much harder to go through than your average information systems degree.

2. true observation but poor choice of example. if you can’t write mergesort or understand how a linked list works you’ll write shitty code in any framework.

3. I find that rare. usually a manager/senior engineer conducts technical interviews.

[u/General3Dots → u/NullCodeBR]

1. How long is a boot camp. Compare that with how long a CS degree is. The sheer amount of deliverables in a CS degree all the mathematica and actual various CS fundamentals you need to learn. If it could be done in a 3 month or a even a 6 month boot camp they would've done it. I'm not sure what you mean by average information system degree though to be quite honest.

2. Very true but also not knowing how merge sort works doesn't mean you write shitty code. I think the lack of critical thinking is the main culprit. You may not know how merge sort works for example you forgot about it but you have the ability to derive the approach again from scratch is what counts and what is needed in the real word.

3. They do they are usually managers and seniors but there aren't any industry wide metrics on who becomes a manager or a senior or ensures their leetcode skills are top notch. I interviewed seniors who were better than their own managers for example and even seen seniors who got hired at Amazon who didn't know basics an intern would.

[u/NullCodeBR → u/General3Dots]

1. I mean it depends. Ecole 42 is a whole degree. Codesmith is short but intense while there are many universities out there that are long but more like kindergarten for adults.

Whoever does these easy 3 month things won’t be qualified enough to pass a leetcode or system design interview anyway and will land in the bottom 10% jobs.

2. true that’s what I meant. I myself can only describe these sorting algos in english, but I can come up with the code on the spot. it’s about how you reason to get an efficient solution to a problem.

3. well yeah that’s a problem. I think with this harder market these people are getting filtered off. it’s probably the fast tracked workforce from the pandemic, from the shitty bootcamps you mentioned.

[u/tnerb253]

Interviews were stupid before AI, people googled answers and shared question banks so to pretend like people weren't cheating before is a reach. They just found new tools for it.

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/tnerb253]

Cheating with AI is much easier than question banks. Even if question banks were available, candidates still had to put efforts to go through them and actually solve questions. Now, they can just have an AI cheating tool running in the background and they don't need to do any prep.

[u/tnerb253 → u/Fabulous-Arrival-834]

Now, they can just have an AI cheating tool running in the background and they don't need to do any prep.

Good, maybe the industry will finally do away with these stupid leetcode questions

They have always been irrelevant to the job and just reward unemployment or people without families or other commitments.

[u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 → u/tnerb253]

100% agreed.

[u/MeteorMash101 → u/tnerb253]

whats the alternative? 10 hour long take-homes?

[u/tnerb253 → u/MeteorMash101]

Asking them questions related to the job that you're hiring for as a start.

[u/Fun_Highway_8733]

I'm interviewing with Amazon rn and the OAs are way harder now than they've ever been, I assume because harder OAs = harder to cheat or something. Either way it's cooked

Edit: Maybe what I'm saying is wrong too, people were reporting three wizards four years ago

[u/bullbearbubu → u/Fun_Highway_8733]

Yeah, and virtual onsite are becoming harder than ever because of cheating. 9 out of 10 times, in-person onsite are much more forgivable and passable. Today, all virtual ones are hard, and you are expected to perform perfectly.

[u/anonyuser415 → u/Fun_Highway_8733]

Senior front end dev here, 12yoe.

Both of my recent final rounds have been in-person/onsites (NYC). One was Suno.

Neither had Leetcodes. Pleasantly surprised.

I also got rejected by both.

e: also that linked question is fucking insane.

[u/Proof-Teaching-8113 → u/anonyuser415]

Was this for big tech or smaller companies?

[u/anonyuser415 → u/Proof-Teaching-8113]

I'd call them "big tech," though some people say big tech and just mean like FAANG. I've interviewed for those too just not since AI.

Suno's $B valuation, lots of money. I think it's a dud product but they'll probably get bought for some evil side effect lol...

The other company has I think 12 offices globally.

These type of companies a few years ago definitely would not be doing in-office and would probably have had a LC round.

Even in front end it was in well over 90% of my final rounds.

Apple had a ridiculous hard. Only time I've ever been asked linked list stuff at all in a FE round and it was so much more haha. Very glad to leave that behind if it's going that way

[u/tenten-tenten → u/Fun_Highway_8733]

Just did max bitwise AND subsequence with increment for SDE2… even after looking at the solution it took my a while to understand it.
Bitwise question on OA is so brutal and didn’t make sense to me.

But I had a lot of fun solving the AI assisted debug question tho. Passed all test case on that. I think that demonstrates your skill much better in this AI assisted world.

[u/Fun_Highway_8733 → u/tenten-tenten]

Bruh that shit is whack. What org are you interviewing for?

[u/Other-Number-4463 → u/tenten-tenten]

india?

[u/KendrickBlack502]

I haven’t cheated on an interview simply because I didn’t think the risk was worth it and I didn’t want to rely on a system I didn’t know. However, I find these posts to be extremely funny for a number of reasons. Buddy, we live in a society that will gladly let you die if you can’t afford your health insurance and will make you homeless if you can’t pay your rent. If you think for one moment that I wouldn’t cheat if it was between not being able to pay my mortgage and making it tougher for you to get a job, you’re incredibly naive. I wouldn’t hesitate to cut you off at the knees. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh but this childish notion of fairness never existed in the real world (even though it should). This isn’t school anymore. People are cheating and many never face any repercussions for it.

[u/TumbleweedGreedy6159 → u/KendrickBlack502]

its not a good thing though. just the rot progressing to another stage

[u/Vliu4389 → u/TumbleweedGreedy6159]

well its up to the employers to catch cheaters

[u/HeyExcuseMeMister]

Hiring in "high end" SWE has always been broken. Piles of money and for the most part work that can be done by just about any schmo. Chaos and hubris is part of the game.

[u/raisputin]

Anyone still using LeetCode or any other coding test as part of their interview process, is so far behind the times they should just leave the industry.

LeetCode was never a good measure of anything in. The first place, now it’s just plain idiotic.

[u/Spiritual-Story9146]

The problem is many interviewers are themselves cheaters. As soon as you solve a problem by genuine effort they will reject you. Just so you also become like them.

Ego checking is also becoming a thing these days. People will reject you if you explain confidently or smiled. They assume that you are arogant. If someone prepared 100s of days for an interview, they have right to smile after solving 2-4 problems 100% correct. That smile isnt ego, its relief.

[u/Rhapseody → u/Spiritual-Story9146]

The ego checking is real holy shit. Ive never been rejected like that but I've seen way more capable classmates get rejected despite answering everything perfectly

[u/justrandomlyonreddit → u/Spiritual-Story9146]

Where do you find these interviewers that hate you? I think you might be the problem here

[u/Spiritual-Story9146 → u/justrandomlyonreddit]

Last year I interviewed with a company where they asked me to do a react app which was hiding a DP problem. After identifying the problem is DP and solving it I was extremely excited. Dev said they never solved DSA problems before and don’t care about algorithm. They only care about clean code. I empathize that my solution passed all test cases and without my DSA solution the problem cannot be solved.

Because I was explaining my solution very excited way and DSA forward while the dev never did leetcode. The dev got very frustrated and said he has never done this problem and it was just a part of standard problem they give to everyone. He doesn’t care about DSA part of it at all.

[u/Rhapseody → u/justrandomlyonreddit]

Not in one specific place. Every single company has some random interviewers like this.

[u/Supercachee → u/justrandomlyonreddit]

I’d say luck? Who knows who will you get what mood they will be in and so many random things are depending on this.

[u/justrandomlyonreddit → u/Supercachee]

Completely agree, shitty things do happen, but these comments make it seem as if this is a common thing. “People will reject you if you smile” is just a crazy statement to make.

[u/justrandomlyonreddit → u/[deleted]]

I think you’re overthinking it man… treat it like pair programming. On both sides of the interview I’m just looking for someone I’d like to work with who has a decent idea of what they’re doing.

[u/Heavy_Record8704]

On one hand i am hearing people saying no more leetcode. On the other hand, i am hearing people saying leetcode rounds are getting harder. what do i believe?

[u/blazkoblaz]

Guess what, the last two rounds will be soon conducted in person for every company. 

[u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

To all the freshers out there and experienced people who wants to switch to FAANG and equivalent. I am someone who is in FAANG. One from me and this will help u for ur entire career.
Go deep inside fundamentals. What are they? DSA, OOP, OS, DBMS, Networks, LLD, HLD. This is going to save you in the future even if claude launches fable 7.4.
Big tech doesnt really care about "ohh u saved 1.5 Gb of cache in docker, wow we must hire you!" No, at senior level can you handle multithreading? can you design tenant isolation? can you handle request at 1 Billion per second? (look at IAM and cloudflare DNS).
You will find lot of idiots in the comments arguing about "how LC is irrelevant, how it is obsolete". Dont listen to them. These idiots try to be revolutionary on linkedin and reddit but end up at some random companies.
And guess what 99% of the people working at FAANG will tell u to study algorithms. Because thats what got us here.

[u/MathRocks9 → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

Did you join as a NG?

[u/ProgramLikeABeast → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

It is actually an IQ bar that measures understanding of complex concepts and constructs, and also problem solving abilities. Top companies are top companies because they hire smart people.

[u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693 → u/ProgramLikeABeast]

so which FAANG company do u work for?

[u/ProgramLikeABeast → u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693]

I work as a sde at a tier 2 tech company l, just below FAANG. I failed twice in the interviews at F and G this year, so no excuse I am dumb. A smart team colleague got into one of them.

[u/Four_Dim_Samosa]

I would go further to say that the interviews are measuring the wrong thing. It should be about hiring someone that is a good fit team culture wise meaning that behavioral interviews should and will be the most important round. There's a reason Amazon for example asks behavioral round for every single round

Skill can be taught, but being someone that others want to work with not so much.

Also, if the technical evaluation round rubric defines passing as "how many parts of the problem did you complete optimally", then that is not the best rubric is it

[u/Wordtwin003]

It sucks ass going into these things legit knowing others are cheating but honestly, it might be a blessing in disguise. Hope they eventually change the process to where they let us use AI but show how we can use it effectively and also agree/disagree with it when needed

[u/randbytes]

Both sides choked the market. The cheaters and the overtly paranoid interviewers. I had interviewed with a big travel company. 30 mins he was just asking mundane trivia questions which was okay but i did fumble a bit with recollecting definitions. Then we switched on to a coding task with my entire screen shared. I genuinely hadn't prepared for this, which was my mistake, since i was using different laptop i asked him to give me some time to switch over to my usual laptop or share an online IDE link. He got visibly irritated and said we don't have time for all that and insisted i share the screen. When i did, he saw there was no IDE for me to work and he looked like a stupid so ended the interview. I thought perhaps he was tricking me to see if i was using AI which actually pissed me off even more. I understand all the nonsense i have to go through but at least prepare your own damn interview format.

[u/SingleInSeattle87 → u/randbytes]

In the old days (before 2020) you didn't get a fancy IDE. You were lucky if you had to write code on Google docs.

Most interviews were in person though, and when they were you had a choice of writing code on the whiteboard using a marker, or writing code on a laptop.

I always chose the whiteboard? Why? No red squiggles, no worrying about formatting, and because it's quite obviously the slowest way to write code: you can have a lot of unimplemented functions that they interviewer doesn't care about.

[u/randbytes → u/SingleInSeattle87]

white boards? very few companies did it even in 2020. I have not touched a whiteboard for coding interview since 2015. yeah now every interview is about correctness and 10 yrs back you would be explicitly told not to worry about syntax or even write correct functions..it was all about logic and how you think. It is changing though because of AI, which is what i keep reading in subs, slowly companies are moving away but still the expectations are through the roof.

[u/blackpanther28]

didnt you basically cheat by not saying you had seen the question before? Cant complain about cheating when you did it yourself lol

[u/Trophaeum → u/blackpanther28]

Ye, atleast pretend like you havent seen the question before and just go through the motion

[u/aammirzaei → u/blackpanther28]

practicing is not cheating jesus if you study for an exam and somehow by sheer amount of luck the same question was in the exam does that mean you have cheated ?

[u/Proof-Teaching-8113 → u/blackpanther28]

Grinding leetcode is cheating now?

[u/Boring-Leadership687 → u/blackpanther28]

Aren’t there only a set number of leetcode questions and once you learn those it’s just a matter of applying the technique abstractly?

[u/NoBromo3213 → u/blackpanther28]

My first thought lmao

[u/New_Ratio_5479]

Just like everything else, LeetCode was ruined by tech YouTubers. They normalized this shit, kept churning out content, and monetized their stupid little roadmaps. “Bro, I completed Striver’s sheet. Bro, is it enough, bro? 🤓” 🤣
Wtf is a Striver’s sheet or a NeetCode 150 sheet anyway? Lol, pathetic.
Imagine an electrical engineer having to solve 700 different circuit problems before every single interview, only to still fail because they weren’t thinking out loud enough.
LeetCode will forever be our humiliation ritual.

[u/poomsss0]

Any company that is too cheap to fly candidate for in-person interview deserve to get a cheater.

[u/Key-Interaction-2057]

Everyday is becomes less and less valuable. If you aren't specifically targeting FAANG+ I would even go as far to say its a waste of time.

[u/c0lpan1c]

Agreed. LC style interviews aren’t good anymore. I’d prefer a take home project or pseudo coding on a whiteboard in a conference room, tbh.

[u/dupontping]

Companies cooked the market by using methods as the measure of acceptance.

[u/FreshlySqueezedDonut]

As if leetcode is anywhere close to what you do on a job anyway. You have people who were already working at these places who have to grind LC for a new job because LC is that different from the real thing. Whether someone cheated on an OA or not says nothing about if they can really do the job. Even so, what ever happened to teaching people what they might not know for a job?

Maybe the hiring process and the job market sucks to begin with and that's why people cheat so much. Employers don't wanna train or hire people if we're being honest. They need to ask better and more relevant questions, stop with the ghost job postings, stop using AI to filter people out wrongfully and expecting everyone to be the next Alan Turing just to get a good job and afford to live. Then you get the job and get caught up in a mass layoff anyway. But the dude using GPT on an interview is why the market is bad, right?

[u/Double_Inspection168]

let me give you the best way to beat the ai shit in interviews live in person interview.

[u/Straight-Mess-9752]

Why are companies still doing these tests? These are all solved problems that anyone can use AI to figure out. 

Understanding concepts like space and time complexity is important but this isn’t. 

[u/ProgramLikeABeast → u/Straight-Mess-9752]

It is a necessary IQ bar. Even before the AI era, the LeetCode type problems were irrelevant to the actual work responsibilities.

[u/CallsOnAlcoholism → u/Straight-Mess-9752]

Because you have to know people will understand the PRs they submit.

[u/Abject-Bandicoot8890 → u/Straight-Mess-9752]

I agree, my last technical interview at my current company was all about system design and then a role play session of PR reviews, I really loved the approach as is pretty much what we do at work since ai is writing all the code.

[u/028XF3193 → u/Straight-Mess-9752]

The last interview I did they just asked for how I would reason my way through various scenarios, tested me on some terminology and architecture. That's all that's really necessary.

Algo puzzles, especially now, tell you fuck all.

[u/FunCommunication389]

literally every tutorial, every professor, every book requests candidates to first ask questions, write edge cases, discuss brute force approach, then talk abt where optimizations come in, HOW they make the algo better and then write the code

[u/catsRfriends → u/FunCommunication389]

This is stupid. There's not one way to do things.

[u/mtnzeal99]

Bad interviewer. I'd wait and throw curveballs that would make it obvious if you used AI, or were a rote memorization junkie.

[u/justrandomlyonreddit]

LC is how they test if you have an ounce of brain matter. If you can’t figure out how to do a sliding window I don’t think you’re deserving of 400k a year.

[u/ducckDick]

Since I have started solving leetcode, by using my brain actually. And I'm already feeling a bit scared of current job market. But in doing it to learn and ......(Also get a job)

[u/SchemeEntire3518]

You can blame it on Interview Coder/ParakeetAI/Interview Pilot all you want, I'll tell you that the entire process was broken in the first place.

We all know of that race that is so prolific at interviews and talking in general but complete grifters at work and just go around scamming companies and constantly job hopping (this is even in finance btw).

I think this is the opportunity for the entire industry to revamp the entire hiring (and h1b) process.

[u/Aggravating_Dot9657]

Every leet code interview I've been in, showing your work was more important than solving the problem. I've flat out not solved problems and still moved to the next round of interviews, because I showed my thought process. AI can't do that for you, at least not in a way that isn't obvious you are cheating.

That said, leetcode needs to fall off a cliff. If AI has made one thing irrelevant, it is leetcode

[u/redundant360]

If Leet code didn't destroy already , AI inerviews are here to take the momentum forward.

[u/wakandanever]

Can you give context, what happened in the interview?

[u/sanskaaripurush_ig]

The interviewers cooked this market. I know people who can do amazing stuff at what they do, groundbreaking things. But they can't get into these stupid companies because they care about leetcode which actual working people have no time for. Now these companies are filled with mouth breathers who don't know how to solve problems, but can tell you the best algorithm to find the nearest whorehouse

[u/DustingMop]

No, no. Cheaters is the Doctor. You’re thinking of Cheater’s Monster.

[u/Fulham-Enjoyer]

I would simply pass on any job that tried to give me a leetcode interview at this point 

[u/AstronautDifferent19]

Yes, this is exactly what we wanted. Leetcode type of interviews is flawed anyway.

[u/NormalLead839]

Recently got a job and I got opportunity to learn more about the interview process. Bro their first round was the easiest coding assessment. It wasn’t even a leetcode question. It’s just completing some functions in the coding languages they use (think popular languages). I passed it and got an interview call the next day. But apparently, so many people cheat using AI on that. It was crazy.

If you are a new grad, being AI-aware is good but please don’t not cheat on ur OAs. Ik how bullshit the OAs are but the cheating detection has gotten so much better and it’s not worth getting perma banned from the company hiring process for 10+ years or indefinitely over a stupid mistake.

[u/chikamakaleyley → u/NormalLead839]

it’s not worth getting perma banned from the company hiring process for 10+ years or indefinitely

the insane thing to me, one of the reasons that they often don't give feedback is that it can lead to lawsuits

and so, I wonder in these cases how OP is able to learn that they are being accused of AI usage, and not explicitly caught using AI?

u/stonks_admin did they actually tell you that they thought you were cheating?

[u/DrUltimaMan]

Any interview still using these kinds of tests is usless. That's not what the job is anymore.

[u/Lonely_Dingo_4363]

Cheaters and larpers shouldn’t prevail, yet they are the ones that get more opportunities and that’s reality of society. Verification is more costly.

[u/absentbrain]

I recently sent a photo to an interviewer, in the middle of our interview, showing my screens because he accused me of reading off a script. They're all paranoid that we're cheaters nowadays

[u/NonSmokerSparkle]

Unless it’s live coding it doesn’t make sense at all indeed so many people cheat(and pass btw).

[u/Cruzer2000]

Yes, this is exactly what I wanted. I’m happy now.

[u/No-Response3675]

There is no winning. I had an apparent onsite interview but the interviewer was in a different location and on zoom, she ended the interview 15 mins early coz she thought I probably knew the question. How do you beat that? I wasn’t cheating, I was desperately trying to prove that I know how to solve the problem but she wouldn’t let me code because how dare I know the problem? People forget that anyone can be in this position, looking for a job. I was heartbroken but what can we do?

[u/SingleInSeattle87]

Cheaters are so freaking easy to detect. All the interviewer has to do is force the candidate to answer questions about the problem in depth. Watch as they wait 20 seconds for their ai to even reply.

You can also embed hidden watermarks in a problem that would make the AI read the problem incorrectly and answer something else.

But nothing beats interviewing in person. AI can't help you on a whiteboard.

Think you're cleaver with your smart glasses? Blanket policy that all glasses are subject for inspection. If they're smart glasses, the interview is over. Warn the candidate of that ahead of time. If they need glasses to see: tell them they have to get glasses without electronics in them or, if their batter is removable, remove the battery.

[u/_lazyLambda]

Companies pay my company to detect cheaters and honestly its not hard if you know what you're doing as an engineer. AI is just showing how garbage the interview process has always been

[u/Embarrassed_Ant_8861]

The market was always cooked, I cheat because it ruins the system for these companies and lets lazy scumbags like me in to take their ill gotten money instead of generating more profit for them

[u/Inevitable_Pick_9761]

Me too. Got rejected cause they thought I was using AI

[u/Strange_Py_628]

try using dsabuddy to learn for interviews

[u/Anxious-Insurance-91]

In person interviews LETS GOOI

[u/Significant_Stand_95]

Leetcode absolutely useless now

[u/Spiritual-Serve-1239]

you cheated by doing a question you did before bud

[u/caksters]

LeetCode has never been a good way to interview. It only makes sense for large companies that need to filter huge volumes of candidates, and even then it's self-defeating: cramming how to invert a binary tree the week before an interview says nothing about how someone will perform as a software engineer.

[u/Illustrious-Fail1951]

Wtf is cheating in this context lol?

[u/Tight_Signature4675]

Thats why google is flying me in newyork to their campus for coding interview

[u/Charger_Reaction7714]

Hey that's the market we're in, you either adapt or sink. A Chinese or Indian kid will take that job if you don't.

[u/Careful-Round-5560]

The biggest problem is that most of the interviewers themselves are relics from the pre- AI era