
Ask HN: Tired of Leetcode style interviews. What to do? - tundratoys
I am EM at a FAANG like company. I have experienced that for EM roles all companies I have talked with expect LeetCode or HackerRank like crazy interviews. Frankly there is just too much to prepare on top of 10-12 hour workdays.<p>I do fine with system design and architecture rounds. I have not coded in last 4 year and my previous experience is heavily skewed towards data engineering and management. I am realizing that online interviews are more brutal than whiteboard interviews. You always have someone watching at you and noting down every single character or backspace!<p>Are there any companies hiring without leetcode? I came across a github repo but there are not many interesting companies.<p>Any suggestions?
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f0rfun
The last time I had a chat with someone from a FANNG like company, the
consensus was that it would not be unreasonable to be grinding algo/leetcode
for 6 months to ace that FAANG interview.

However, my personal experience with a tech interviewer at FAANG is that the
technical interview holds the same weight as other non-technical rounds (not
sure if he's BSing me) and for good reasons. He is aware how broken coding
interviews are but to be fair to FAANGs, they don't have a shortage of good
applicants. The only way they can sieve/filter fast enough is as such. He is
also acutely aware there are good engineers that they may lose simply because
they can't perform during live coding but it's a trade-off atm. There just
isn't a perfect solution. And he also reminded me that there are many
applicants who didn't make it at first try only to succeed on Nth attempt.
They don't discriminate applicants who retry and generally see it as a
positive trait (grit and interest in company).

On this note, you'll have to ask yourself if investing 6 months to a year is
worth the effort of acing only 1 part of the interview? Also, why FANNG?
Introspect. Is it just for the brand on your resume? You ready to be a cog in
a giant machine? Or it's genuine interest in their work or you need that
paycheck? If so, go for it.

How about startups around your area?

~~~
tundratoys
To be clear, I am looking for Engineering Manager position. It’s already hard
to get response from companies. Even smaller companies (50 to 250 people) in
Bay Area have adopted to this style of interviewing. It’s no longer just FAANG
who do this kind of interviews. That makes it super frustrating.

~~~
f0rfun
Yeah, everyone's thinking they are the next FAANG and they need to copycat
their interview style. Coupled with the fact it's so easy to outsource
technical interviews to leetcode/hackerrank, they'd be thinking why not?

Well, you might really have to play that game if you do come across THAT
company which you are really interested in and they unfortunately, practice
leetcode style interviews. Then you'd be glad you are already prepared for it
than not.

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BJBBB
Let me turn this around a bit. I have worked with and interviewed former FAANG
employees. A few were good to go, as is, for some programming and software
engineering positions, but have not found any that could make reliable
systems-level stuff or do anything that was not narrowly defined.

Recent contract was to screen about 100 applicants for a quality position in a
large well-known (mostly) hardware company, so the salary was commensurate
with a FAANG, and better than average for this area. In addition to the
algorithmic stuff, the position required knowledge of MISRA, functional
safety/SIL (IEC61508), control systems (mostly PID stuff), machinery safe code
(IEC62061), instrument control code, test-driver code, and some other stuff.
We did not care if there was no direct functional safety experience, but the
applicant did need some level of hardware knowledge and some basic Physics.
The FAANG people all bombed.

Methinks you people are over-thinking this stuff and over-rating the FAANG
gang. That is, go find a non-FAANG job that requires you to grow and allows
diverse professional opportunities.

~~~
logicslave
Yeah but FAANG pays twice what everyone else does

~~~
decafninja
Also doesn't take into account the sort of "compounding interest" effect
having a FAANG (or similar elite tech company) name on your resume, possibly
for the rest of your career.

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deeblering4
I’d suggest to keep applying and interviewing broadly, but be firm with your
boundaries.

If the interview goes in a direction you don’t like, tell them respectfully
that you’ve lost interest in the opportunity.

Don’t forget you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.
Odds are a crappy and dehumanizing interview process is going to happen at a
crappy and dehumanizing company.

~~~
imhoguy
Just ask about recruitment process details upfront. Hiring managers are usualy
happy to share and save company time too.

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lmiller1990
Are you only aiming for big, FAANG like companies?

Many small(er) companies will not bother with things like algorithm questions.
Most companies I have interviewed at will have a coding assignment, usually
timeboxed to 3-4 hours, where you build something relevant (eg I applied for a
fullstack position; I had to build a todo-like app with a back and front-end).
These are all small orgs, usually between 10-30 people. They have less
resources and less applicants.

You may want to consider the companies you are applying to; any big orgs with
crazy comp will have endless amounts of applicants, and a good way to filter
them down without actually spending any time/resources is things like
leetcode.

If you are dead-set on a big, FAANG like company, you will probably need to
start grinding out leetcode (as you have seen , they love it). Either expand
your search criteria, or start grinding coding problems.

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decafninja
Non-tech companies. Banks, insurance, defense, etc. are likely your best bets
to avoid leetcode interviews, but even those companies are starting to get on
board the leetcode cargo cult. That said, the level of rigor is still likely
to be lower. A suboptimal runtime solution that would be a fail at a FAANG
interview might be a win at one of these companies' interviews. Or you might
get leetcode easies instead of mediums/hards.

I don't know the details of your current circumstances, but if you're already
at a "FAANG like company", I would imagine going to a non-tech company would
most likely be a step down in terms of pay, perks, prestige, and work
environment.

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keviv
Following the thread.

I'm in the same boat currently. I'm working as an Engineering Manager at a
huge e-commerce company in India. I try to be hands-on as much as possible.
Still, DS/Algo rounds will require preparation. Even in India, small companies
will have 5 different rounds including a DS/Algo round. I don't mind System
design and architecture rounds as well. Have worked in few companies earlier
which had take-home assignments which made more sense IMO.

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smtlaissezfaire
This is exactly what I'm working on.

[https://www.srchparty.com/](https://www.srchparty.com/)

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bor100003
Asking in advance about the type of interviews helps. Better avoid wasting a
whole day when you are not prepared. At least to reduce the stress of
whiteboarding. Algorithms are fun, but most of the people don't implement BFS
after the college.

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fatcatdogfat
This past year a big insurance company in USA didnt leetcode me for a dev
position

Most do though

