Have coding interviews gotten harder?

NeetCodeIO · Intermediate ·⚡ Algorithms & Data Structures ·2y ago

Key Takeaways

The video discusses how coding interviews have become more challenging over time, with a focus on system design and algorithmic problems, and how this shift is affecting the way engineers prepare for interviews.

Full Transcript

the other week I had a conversation with my former Tech lead from Google here's a short clip from it that I thought was interesting uh how many leak code problems have you solved if I go to my profile right now it's probably around 400 so I guess that goes into the next question when you were doing your interviews coding interviews how were you preparing yeah so when I was interviewing it was a little bit different I actually got an internship at Microsoft that was my first job and there was no lead code back then so back then you would be reading cracking the coding interview uh you would be going through some questions that you've heard other people going through and you would you would just practice together then the actual interview was pretty similar to what happens today in B Tech but after the internship there was no other interview um for a full-time conversion at Microsoft at Google there was but I went through the industry route which which just meant like a little bit of a more difficult interview um with a system design as well so to give a little context leak code was actually created in 2015 so it makes sense that people weren't really asking questions from it back then whereas cracking the coding interview is a book that was written in 2008 so that was kind of all you had like people read books but not only that if you actually go through cracking the coding interview today you'll quickly realize that it's just not enough to prepare for the modern coding interview because the interview is just so much more difficult nowadays Conrad mentioned that in 2009 at Google he had more of a traditional leak code interview but in case you didn't know Google is actually the reason that we have the modern coding interview they were the first ones to start asking these data structures and algorithms problems and people don't realize it but a lot of questions from leak code are actually just taken from the Google question Bank how do I know that well in 2009 I also interviewed for Google and I got a variation of Jump game a dynamic programming or greedy problem after my interview I went on leak code to check if the problem was already on there but it actually wasn't now a few years ago I was doing aite code contest and all of a sudden I saw this problem that I had already solved before it was the variation of Jump game from my Google interview 3 years after I was asked the question it was then posted delete code but I will say now that the question has been public for a while you're probably not going to be asked it because Google does not ask any questions that are publicly leaked but back to the original question it's starting to seem that since Engineers are very specifically preparing for these algorithm style interviews that the bar is getting higher and higher because the entire concept is supply and demand companies only need a certain amount of people if everybody can solve leak code easys companies are going to ask medium questions if everybody can solve mediums they're going to start asking hard questions and that's when things start to go wrong because most people can't solve hard problems unless you've already seen that problem before and that's not a good signal are you just trying to hire people that have already seen your specific problem before I think that's when things really start to break down and it's really getting to a point with the current economy that it's kind of been exaggerated now I haven't interviewed in a while but I think it's fair to say that the bar today definitely is higher than it was several years ago and that's very unfortunate because as much as I like algorithms and data structures it is not the bottom line of what makes a good engineer I want to end by saying that you're still more likely to be asked a medium question than a hard question yes even at Google but if you're an interviewer watching this video and you ask Elite code hards come on don't be a dick

Original Description

🚀 https://neetcode.io/ - A better way to prepare for Coding Interviews Konrad's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/konradjanica 🧑‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navdeep-singh-3aaa14161/ 🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/neetcode1 ⭐ BLIND-75 PLAYLIST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLlXCFG5TnA&list=PLot-Xpze53ldVwtstag2TL4HQhAnC8ATf #neetcode #leetcode #python
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The video discusses the evolution of coding interviews and how they have become more challenging, with a focus on system design and algorithmic problems. It also provides tips for preparing for these types of interviews.

Key Takeaways
  1. Practice solving algorithmic problems on LeetCode
  2. Study system design concepts
  3. Review data structures and dynamic programming
  4. Prepare for common interview questions
  5. Practice whiteboarding exercises
💡 The bar for coding interviews has been raised due to the supply and demand of engineers, and companies are now asking more challenging questions to differentiate between candidates.

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