[8ytecoder]

All we need is one interviewer who absolutely hates interviewing to ruin the experience for the candidate and probably throw them off balance. It happens in Big Tech much more often than people are willing to admit.

I get where you are coming from when you say "the goal is to see how you think" - I really do and I have definitely believed in that once upon a time. Truth is, it's extremely gut/instinct driven than we realise. So yeah, while you can easily shoot down a candidate who seem to regurgitate what they had already solved, there's just absolutely no way to differentiate it from a candidate having a bad moment (let alone a bad day).

I had a take home exercise recently where I was supposed to identify a performance issue and fix it. I read the code in a hurry after finishing my day job. I knew where the likely issue is coming from but just couldn't locate it. I wrote back as such. The next day the solution came to me. I fixed it and sent it back. I still got hired but that sort of thing can never happen in a leet-code type interview no matter how much we'd like to believe. I have ADHD but even otherwise our brains are finicky.

[bin_bash]

My point is just that being able to solve LC mediums under 30 minutes isn’t that relevant. I’m not saying it’s a great way to vet candidates.

30 minutes is probably about what it takes me to solve an LC medium on average and I’ve passed every single FAANG full onsite loop I’ve taken which is a total of 6 over my career. I almost always need a hint or two if it’s not a trivial problem.

If I practiced I could get that number down but I don’t think it would make it more likely to get a better offer.