undefined | Better HN

0 pointscodingslave6y ago0 comments

People are completing 500+ problems on leetcode before heading into interviews at google. Don't believe me? Go read the teamblind forums. People might spend six months studying, after which they pass a bunch of interviews and get good comp. Getting just one offer from a FAANG company often doesnt pay well enough, you need multiple competing ones.

If you think this has anything to do with incompetent people complaining, then you arent reading into the situation.

I will add that one can pass these interviews without extensive preparation, but it makes it alot harder when those around you are willing to spend ridiculous amounts of time studying.

0 comments

6 comments · 6 top-level

nhumrich6y ago

Then its working. Big companies love it when people spend time studying for their interview process. It shows commitment and means that person will feel like they "earned" that job, and should stay longer. This reduces churn, which is the thing they screening out the most. To the big tech companies, this isnt a problem, its a sign of success.

Think how whiny this sounds to any law firm/medical practice. People spend years studying/preparing/working for free to get an internship. And yet, most software devs are still payed better.

2 more replies

dilyevsky6y ago

When I studied for my google interview back in 2011 I learned tons of new things which I used professionally at google and beyond. But I’ll concede that it was before leetcode (although i did casually compete on topcoder just for fun) so I mainly read up on areas where I knew I had blind spots.

brailsafe6y ago

Ugh. I looked at teamblind for about 10 minutes a few years ago and wrote it off as a cesspool of status seekers in the 18-21 age group.

JMTQp8lwXL6y ago

I'm imagining it's going to bite these people on the backend later in life when they sacrificed everything for their careers and potentially missed other major life milestones: cultivating a relationship, starting a family, etc. I know not everyone spends 6 months getting into Google, but there are so many other companies that will take you without 6 months of preparation. If career is the only thing that gives you meaning in life, sure, but I'd rather not put all my eggs in one basket.

4 more replies

mwest2176y ago

Maybe some people do that - I didn't do a single interview question prepping for a Google interview; just read through the topics they suggested reviewing, looked up the concepts I hadn't seen before, and did the interviews.

throwlaplace6y ago

having just recently (in the last 2 weeks) completed >100 problems on leetcode i can affirmatively tell you that it's not actually that difficult to game this system. i read elements of programming interviews (took about a month of a couple of hours a day) and then just blitzgrieged leetcode. this was all in prep for a FAANG internship tech screen i had yesterday. it went well (not perfect but well).

but it is true that these questions bear no resemblance to software engineering so it does feel silly going through the process.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse