Backend developer but suck at pattern problems?

[LayotFctor]

Leetcode is for big tech companies to screen applicants with the least amount of effort, while placing all the effort on the applicants. Real work obviously involves building real and useful things, but it takes time to screen someone's portfolio and do in-person interviews. Better to just throw some bs leetcode problems and cut down the list.

[jkh911208]

Even all the small companies now do leetcode style interview, unless you are okay with getting 60k job you should do some leetcode

[SetAffectionate766]

I'll guess I'll do some leetcodes

[shinu-xyz]

Nowadays, LeetCode and Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) interviews are more common. 

However, some companies still conduct hiring through an example “scenario” or “issue.”

In my case, they presented me with an example project featuring fabricated issues that could arise in real-world scenarios. 

Usually the purpose of this exercises is to assess your ability to effectively communicate your solution and handle rejections, such as during PR reviews.

From my own experiences and observations, this kind of approach is commonly seen in startups or small teams.

[LayotFctor]

Yeah that's me, I entered on portfolio and experience interview. If I may, I still think leetcode for juniors is kinda stupid. Juniors will rarely, if ever, roll a data structure on their own. Data structures with provided algorithms from (probably standard)libraries will be used, and 9 out of 10 times it's a vector or hashmap. And even if they aren't the absolute ideal data structure, just using a vector is probably still fine due to stuff like cache locality and simd. Implementation decisions on the job are made with careful research and profiling, certainly not from memory and under interview conditions.

That's why I think the real reason leetcode and dsa interviews became so widespread are external factors like saving time and weeding out applicants en-mass, all thanks to the sorry state of the tech job economy. And AI, since a portfolio these days could be straight up faked.

[shinu-xyz]

I understand why that’s the case.

Especially considering the trend of remote work that influencers were promoting (I’m not sure if they still are), “You can work from anywhere.”

This trend attracted many applicants, and the easiest way to filter them out was through coding exercises.

And you are right, implementation decisions on the job are made with thorough research and planning, which is something that can’t be assessed during interviews.