> Now that I have kids and a house I don't want to spend hundreds of hours to learn this completely separate skill (leetcode) that I rarely if ever will get to use in my job and get no joy from.
Great point and I do worry about the longer-term damage this leetcode-interviewing may do to the industry. Like any echo chamber, it perpetuates itself. So those who believe memorizing leetcode patterns is related to being a good programmer (it's not) will only hire those who are like themselves, making it worse and worse.
By the time the whiteboard leetcode craze started I was fortunately old enough and established enough that I never had to deal with that early in my career. And by now I have the confidence to tell anyone who wants to do that type of interview to go pound sand. But for younger engineers it's a huge problem so I worry.
Best we can collectively do is stop doing that type of interview. Instead interview people based on their experience and based on actual day to day job requirements (which is never to regurgitate algorithms on a whiteboard).
Great point and I do worry about the longer-term damage this leetcode-interviewing may do to the industry. Like any echo chamber, it perpetuates itself. So those who believe memorizing leetcode patterns is related to being a good programmer (it's not) will only hire those who are like themselves, making it worse and worse.
By the time the whiteboard leetcode craze started I was fortunately old enough and established enough that I never had to deal with that early in my career. And by now I have the confidence to tell anyone who wants to do that type of interview to go pound sand. But for younger engineers it's a huge problem so I worry.
Best we can collectively do is stop doing that type of interview. Instead interview people based on their experience and based on actual day to day job requirements (which is never to regurgitate algorithms on a whiteboard).