[epolanski]

The general rule of thumb is that companies are free to decide what they look for and how to find it and so are candidates.

This is an open source database company, obviously the best candidates are contributors to the project first.

Picky ivy league graduate that farms leetcode and system design question is very very low in the ranking of what such companies should look for.

[pclmulqdq]

All the ivy league graduate leetcode farmers I know are actually the ones who would do the grunt work of developing database integrations for free if they believed a decent salary at a prestigious job might be waiting over the hill.

The people I have met with the lowest tolerance for this stuff are the ones who actually produce the most impactful work. Partly because they don't do work that has no impact on their lives.

Edit: Obviously, they can do whatever they want, but that doesn't mean that it's a good sign from outside.