leetcode style interviews discriminate against older workers: older workers don't have time to grind leetcode. they have other obligations outside work. job descriptions require "x years of experience" but then the interviewer dismisses your experience and you get purely evaluated on whether you pass the interview, just like younger people who don't have the experience.
I don't know where you've been doing coding interviews. I'm pretty confident there are leetcode type problems you will have a hard time with and won't be able to complete in the allotted time. I'll share one of my experiences with a FAANG.
My interviewer first spent a lot of time "getting to know me" and asking trick questions, and stressing he also previously founded a startup, then handed me a problem and demanded I find the optimal solution in ~10 minutes and also wanted me to talk while working on the problem. I could not remember the arguments to a function and couldn't concentrate. It bombed.
A few days later I was sent prep material for an interview at a different FAANG. One of the videos was the author of cracking the coding interview solving this exact problem on a whiteboard. It took her more than an hour to arrive at the optimal solution.
So in short:
1) interviewer had unrealistic expectations
2) interviewer wasted time with introductions given his expectations
3) interviewer asked trick questions to determine whether I am a liar even though it was pretty clear from the introductory conversations that was highly unlikely
4) interviewer created an awkward interviewing environment and triggered my anxiety
5) interviewer thought I should be able to code while talking
6) interviewer probably forgot how long it took him to solve the problem originally and probably never timed that
> leetcode style interviews discriminate against older workers: older workers don't have time to grind leetcode. they have other obligations outside work.
This isn't discrimination on age this is discrimination on dedication to craft. Young people can have obligations outside of work just as easily as older people.
I have more than 20 years of experience and I manage to find time to do leet code exercises before I interview.
I'm saying that testing people for their skill, in any way, will have imperfections and will wind up excluding people. If it excludes people based on something they can control that's probably not the worst thing. Not everybody can get time to practice, but do I really want to be working alongside people who don't practice? Maybe in some jobs I do maybe in some jobs I don't.
If someone really does have 20 years of experience then a single evening of practicing will do a lot more for them than it will a fresh faced kid from college even if that kid from college does it for two or three hours every day for a week.
I just simply don't accept the notion that leet code interviews favor people based on age.
I have played magic the gathering for 30 years. You better believe that if I am going to a tournament I am practicing in advance. Even if I don't learn a new specific skill it might hasten decisions I already know or show me subtle nuances that mught be clutch.
Why would I take my career less seriously than a game?
I don't know where you've been doing coding interviews. I'm pretty confident there are leetcode type problems you will have a hard time with and won't be able to complete in the allotted time. I'll share one of my experiences with a FAANG.
My interviewer first spent a lot of time "getting to know me" and asking trick questions, and stressing he also previously founded a startup, then handed me a problem and demanded I find the optimal solution in ~10 minutes and also wanted me to talk while working on the problem. I could not remember the arguments to a function and couldn't concentrate. It bombed.
A few days later I was sent prep material for an interview at a different FAANG. One of the videos was the author of cracking the coding interview solving this exact problem on a whiteboard. It took her more than an hour to arrive at the optimal solution.
So in short: 1) interviewer had unrealistic expectations
2) interviewer wasted time with introductions given his expectations
3) interviewer asked trick questions to determine whether I am a liar even though it was pretty clear from the introductory conversations that was highly unlikely
4) interviewer created an awkward interviewing environment and triggered my anxiety
5) interviewer thought I should be able to code while talking
6) interviewer probably forgot how long it took him to solve the problem originally and probably never timed that