[subsubzero]

Why is the "bar" for hiring designed around code puzzles(leetcode). Maybe that is not a good signal for hiring at all. You are optimizing for people who just grind away at these silly puzzles vs. having domain experts who have both depth and breadth across a technology stack. I have worked with many a engineer who aced these exercises who imho was entirely unfit for working at a large tech company, their communication was absolutely terrible, and their thinking was quite flawed from a variety of perspectives when it came to systems design and operational rigor. I think we will look back on this time and think what a mistake it was to optimize for employees who were good at solving leetcode.

[boshalfoshal]

I mean, the more senior you get the more focus you have on the stuff you describe - system design interviews, leadership interviews, etc. I know a few people that interviewed at Meta E6 for example, and they were explicitly told the leetcode interviews don't really matter as much and they are just there to make sure you can actually code.

Imo Leetcode is fine for younger hires since at that point you are just looking for aptitude and/or someone who has the work ethic to grind.

With that being said, Lyfts hiring practices is probably NOT why they are laying people off. This is a business issue. No amount of infrastructure or hackernews-style idealistic interviews would be able to fundamentally change their position in their business segment, especially if its just for hiring ICs. The people at lyft are plenty talented, contrary to what OP is saying.

[subsubzero]

yeah I agree with this 100%:

> With that being said, Lyfts hiring practices is probably NOT why they are laying people off

My comment was more a critique of the en-vogue hiring practice of basing a majority of a hiring decision on whether the engineering candidate can pass leetcode level X.

As for why Lyft is struggling is really two-fold, not diversifying themselves besides ride-hailing really pinned them into a corner unlike their competitor Uber which branched into food delivery and other gig businesses. In addition they like many other tech companies over-hired due to pandemic money and herd mentality.

[asdff]

These companies are too large and have to rely on hiring managers versus people who might be domain experts for the actual project (who are probably too busy with said project themselves to take time to vet 500 candidates). It's an unsolvable problem I think for a large company. For much smaller companies, maybe you'd get a lot fewer applicants and it would actually be realistic for a team member to take a week to do some hiring for their team. Of course as small companies get successful, they tend to grow, then they lose this hiring relevancy advantage.