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> It’s not.

Yes it is.

> Theory can be referenced

How do you know that the person is even able to comprehend theory?

> Interviewing in eng is broken, but afaict its a “worst solution save all others” kind of scenario.

That's your opinion.

> Some of the most creative and productive coworkers I’ve had struggled with leetcode style interviews.

Good for you. But "slumpt_'s most creative and productive coworkers" is not a good metric for hiring.

> They’re a bad tool for anyone who isnt a new grad, and even then.

Again, that's your opinion. I'm not a pro in those interviews, but studying DS and algos opened up and pushed my mind to its limits like nothing else. Your whole thinking process changes when you start working on this, you start thinking about constraints, performance implications, pro and cons of different approaches. It is called Computer SCIENCE for a reason.



The person who's going to come up with new idea's isnt spending their time memorizing old ones. They learn to index where to retrieve knowledge when necessary in order to allow them to cover a wider breadth of knowledge. And this will allow themand to pick the best one for the job at hand as opposed to the tool they are an expert in. Sometimes you need a handyman instead of a master plumber because they are better able to see the big picture beyond all the shit.


My best coworkers is about as good of a metric as things that “stretched your mind to its limits.”

The point is neither is demonstrated to bear any relationship to jack shit

Interviewing is and has been broken, even with the changes we’ve made over the years.

If you’re holding onto leetcode challenges that make you think hard as representative of engineering prowess we’re never going to have a reasonable conversation.




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