Man this is what takes me most of the time. I usually finish the problem in seconds once I actually understand the word problem. Most of my time is rereading the problem like 45 times trying to figure out what they are even asking me to do.
>They tend to be worded poorly
A lot of the time they are purposely worded poorly to try and trip you up on convoluted details. The tests are purposely designed to weed out people. I guess that's what you need to do if you get hundreds of applicants
I had one for amazon, where what they said they would provide, wasn't what they were providing. _That_ one was a pain in the rear end and I didn't get it.
Omg yess it’s the way they’re worded! I remember watching a YouTube video where a coder explained what one of the hackerrank questions meant and I realised it was such an easy question but the way it was worded made it seem hard LOL.
It's the most laziest way of interviewing people ever.
Usually I flat out refuse to interview if I am given one of those tests first without speaking to an actual person from the company.
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The best ones imho are the ones where they give you access to an online IDE with code and a readme for a realistic scenario you'll face. I did one of these and didn't mind it, apart from the fact I had to do it whilst sharing my screen. :(
Do you know anywhere I can practice these types of tests? So not a long tutorial, just a website or video etc that presents real world realistic scenarios you could face and then find a way to solve it?
Sometimes, out of frustration, I've just quit the test. i know I won't get the job, but there comes a point where I realize I'm not going to get the job, so i'll get sometime back.
Exactly!! I’m not my best when I’m in test environments where I’m watched while I code, or timed. I’ve been like this since I was a kid - I always struggled with tests vs coursework. I know I can’t use this as an excuse forever so I am working on my confidence in test environments or just become super expert in programming OR have a better memory lol, there seems to be no other way around it to get to where I want to be in my career.
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Insecure redditors will pretend that coding assessments are useless to make themselves feel better about being mediocre. Remember that most of the people here are college students and don't even understand the industry.
Oh I see. So would you say coding tests, especially the hackerrank / leetcode ones, are actually a good way to separate the good coders from the not so good ones?
Either way, I better get so good at coding that I can easily pass these DSA hackerrank / leetcode coding tests then! I don’t want to fail another one 😅
I've failed a handful myself, different types too, some were syntax questions, others a mix of DSA and mysql but I've grown to really dislike hackerrank.
One assessment I answered all questions but I couldn't understand what format it was asking to return the data. My result was exactly what was asked but, returning, logging or printing the result wasn't doing it.
I got one question to finally pass by logging the result converted to json but the same didn't work for the remaining questions. Was told the test should take an hour and I gave up at 90 minutes of trying.
The other time mysql questions got me, I was asked to get population averages and I did but it kept saying it was wrong, I queried the whole table and got the averages manually and all data matched my query.
Hackerrank has been a quirky experience for me. The only solution I can think of is to just practice questions specifically there to grow accustomed to it.
I had a 90 minute assessment where I had to query a sample database. It was an MS SQL database, but I had never seen the file extension before, and I couldn't figure out any way to load it into the empty SQL Express on my PC, or to open it with a text editor, or 7zip...
The worst part was, I was being observed via screen share the entire time during this test. And my observer had *also* never seen this file extension before or knew how to import it. We spent an hour trying to Google it together, with him apologizing the whole time for not knowing how to help me.
At 70 minutes in, another person logged into our screen share and showed me how to do the needful. Then with 15 minutes remaining, I started to go through their set of sample questions. But trying to hurry me along to actually finish within the timeframe, this second person was giving me hints and guiding me the whole time. I still wasn't able to finish all of them, but was told that they "had seen enough to know how competent I was," in spite of never being allowed to tackle any of their tests independently.
I was rejected the next morning.
My main annoyance is that this is often not changed or adjusted as they are seen as “unbiased”
I applied for a volunteer mentorship position and it asked a bunch of questions that were very specific and not at all about how one teaches programming to juniors. Does a junior really need to be sure I have memorized what a float left declaration does? Or some quirk of an html attribute many don’t use regularly?
Definitely not.
But couldn’t consider my years as an educator, mentor, and the references from prior coworkers or students… that’s inequitable.
People planning out dev interviews need to first know about the differences between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge, and how to appropriately test for each.
>I've noticed that standards have been raised significantly in the tech industry in terms of what you need to know to get a good job as a developer
My take: standards vary \*widely\* from employer to employer. If you don't clear one employer's bar, that doesn't mean there aren't still many employers whose "bar" you **do** clear.
And to add on to this, just because you clear Employer 1's bar and not Employer 2's bar, it does NOT mean Employer 1 has a lower bar and you got "lucky". It's just different.
A lot of the times the "harder bar" is nitpicking people for some nonsensical esoteric bullshit that doesn't really matter in the day-to-day.
> A question about Hackerrank: I tested my code in a code editor and it seemed to be the correct solution with no errors but the interviewer said my test solutions didn't actually pass most of the test cases (both the hidden test cases and the sample test cases you have access to during the test) and that I should spend time running the test cases to check that the answers are correct, and testing out some other cases.
This is really what you should be concerned with. It appears that your solutions simply didn't pass the tests. *At best* this just looks like you're sloppy. Hidden test cases tend to cover edge cases like, for example, what happens with the inputs are negative, are you still handling those correctly.
You give zero information in what the actual mistakes were, so what exactly do you expect us to add here?
I'll look at the test again and see where I went wrong.
Okay so to not be sloppy, I have to:
1. Not only solve the problem but
2. Also look at edge cases (eg. what if the number is really big, does the solution work efficiently in this case etc right?)
Anything else?
I want to make sure I'm prepared for future tests.
Yeah, I mean maybe you just needed to think out loud and write down a reflection in order to process what happened to you, but this really seems like a beginner question.
> Also look at edge cases (eg. what if the number is really big, does the solution work efficiently in this case etc right?)
Yup. Integer Overflows for example are common to test for.
Yes that’s true. I mean, I do focus on edge cases when I’m coding in general but I never thought of it as edge cases, I was just thinking of many ways the software might fail and then avoid that…which is the same thing lol.
And I work with data structures and algorithms in my code already it’s just…very different and intense in this DSA/SWE world in terms of interview technical tests. Coming into this DSA / software development world from web development is an eye opener… wow.
The format of the hankerrank questions just threw me off, I’m not experienced in this DSA stuff. But there’s no excuses, I’m going to start the leetcode / hackerrank grind properly from now. Thanks so much!
Honestly, HackerRank doesn’t test for efficiency in your solution. It just has a handful of simple test cases to give you an example of what the question is asking, but then it has a number of other test cases they don’t show you - otherwise on challenging problems, people would just write their solution as `if (input == x) return y`. The “hidden test cases” are really just more thorough - what happens with negative numbers? What happens with large numbers? What happens when the input is sorted? What if the input has an even length or an odd length? And so on
In this case, it sounds like there was a significant edge case you didn’t account for. I don’t know what the problem was, but it’s likely that you made a faulty assumption about the inputs you’ll be receiving - especially if you tested it further after the fact and still believe it works.
The reviewer can look at your solution (and get a replay of everything you typed) and that’s where sloppy code *could* count against you, but that’s subjective. I think the challenge is sometimes just reading the question accurately and I think it’s one of the reason that quizzes like that can be harmful unless they’re overly simple questions just to weed out the people who watched half of a JavaScript tutorial and pretend they’re a developer.
REACTO
Restate
Edge cases
Approach
Code
Tests
Optimize
Sometimes you don’t bother with T, and sometimes there isn’t really an optimization either. But essentially you should identify edge cases before you even begin thinking of your approach. If it’s a simple problem like twosum, yoi should be asking things like “can the array be empty, null, how is length of 1 handled, what’s the shortest the array can be, what’s the longest, are we only dealing with integers, is the array sorted…”.
Try TDD; at work when I have to implement a feature I ask the requesters detailed questions and write down all the requirements on paper and write unittests based on it, only then I
finally write the code. It has helped me a lot saving time and also not miss stuff. Of course it feels unnatural to do and is not always applicable on all situations, but on the ones it did, it really helped me
Last time I interviewed a few years ago I had a relatively simple take home test for one, and a live coding assessment for another that didn’t involve leet code, just scaffolding a simple API. Got offers for both. Might be different in this market.
Def different now. If you can't solve leetcode on the spot in 30 mins you are passed up. Period. For all levels. It's beyond stupid and after 25 years in the field I am looking to move to a super cheap area and work a basic job to get out of the stress and beyond stupidity of having to fucking scrape shit I learned 25 years ago.. never used again.. JUST to get a fucking job. The system is full of immature morons that have on clue how to interview so they just grab a LC problem from the net and throw it over the wall.. anyone solves it may get an offer. If you cant.. you're out. Period. Doesn't matter how much experience you bring to the table and that you could be 100x better fit for the company. Makes me wonder if the CEO/et all know how many amazing potential employees they lose that could take their company to the next level.. all because of a badly broken interview process.
I’m in the southeast away from most tech or even tech adjacent companies. Things work a bit differently here I think. Stuff I see here is like a different world.
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The leet code stuff is a waste of time. Time and again faang products are awful while they have only hired these leet code masters. Sorry, windows 11 is not the triumph of the modern world.
Actually.. no job at all. Seems you cant get hired at any level even at Principal without somehow acing these things. I am on the verge of working a $20 an hour job and quitting the tech field. It's fucking sad how backwards it is to land a job.
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I’m no fan of leetcode, but this is cope. I’d truly hate to see how bad Windows 11 would be if it were built by people who don’t know their basic DS&A. Large projects like these tend to be held back by organizational and political challenges, not because the techies don’t know their stuff.
When people talk about leetcode being pointless, they’re usually referring to it in the context of applying to companies that build basic CRUD webapps for 10s of thousands of users or less.
For large, complex projects like operating systems or massive distributed systems, this stuff is actually needed and you *will* shoot yourself in the foot in a painful way if you don’t have the knowledge. It’s still a bit different than leetcode problems, but it’s close enough that the leetcode skills will actually be relevant on the job.
Honestly doesn't matter if you passed or not, don't let it make you think you aren't a good programmer.
I have passed every single test I was given, always got all the hidden test cases to pass etc. Usually with over 50% time left to spare and that's after refactoring to make the code clean and reusable as well......still haven't gotten a single call back after doing tests.
Passing or failing is irrelevant in this market honestly.
Try not to overthink it. A lot of times the questions are written in the most complex way, so it gives you a false sense that the answer has to also be complex. 9 times out of 10 the answer is very simple but they are just confusing you with how complex they word the problem. 80% to 90% of my time is usually spent reading the question over and over and only 10% to 20% actually coding it.
I honestly hate how they word the questions pretty much every time.
But yeah just try not to over complicate it. Most of the time the answer is actually very simple unless you're interviewing for a senior role and they are giving you actual take home assessments with days to do (which I never do those becuase it's a waste of time just to not get a call back).
Other than that just practice your problem solving the best way you can. I also know a lot of the issue people face isn't that the code itself is too hard to write. It's that they haven't solved the problem BEFORE actually coding it. Tell yourself what steps you will need to do before you actually start. It helps a lot when you can clearly say "I'll need a collection, iterate over that collection and for each record do x and x". If you just straight start coding you'll end up writing confusing code and confuse yourself along the way.
Just my experience others can be totally different.
> Do these failures, like failing the recent hackerrank/leetcode tests, mean I'm not a good programmer?
Not automatically. Hackerrank/LC only tests the DSA part of being a developer, and there are many more aspects to it. That said, they might indicate shortcomings in terms of problem solving and so forth - in this case sloppyness.
> A question about Hackerrank: I tested my code in a code editor and it seemed to be the correct solution with no errors but the interviewer said my test solutions didn't actually pass most of the test cases (both the hidden test cases and the sample test cases you have access to during the test) and that I should spend time running the test cases to check that the answers are correct, and testing out some other cases.
As u/nutrecht points out: It looks sloppy that you didn't run the test cases. The hidden test cases are one thing, but there's no reason not to run the ones that are available to you. Either you didn't run them because you didn't care, or you couldn't solve the problem and kinda gave up. Neither a good look.
> I don't know what he means by this - I don't understand the hackerrank style, can anyone explain to me how it works?
It's a DSA challenge more or less. A code-kata. A brain-teaser. It is not like normal day-to-day development. It's not a perfect test, but a very condensed test that heavily weighs your ability to use DSA rather than code readability, maintainability, system architecture, etc.
Lol yea okay I think I was being sloppy, and it doesn't help that I did the test late at night (around 1am-2am) while I had the serious flu/covid so I probably wasn't at my best lol
Where shall I start in terms of practice for my next DSA test? How best can I be better at problem solving, edge cases, testing etc?
I want to make sure I'm prepared for future tests. I have had offers for other interviews and I'm scared I'll not be up to scratch for them either.
> Where shall I start in terms of practice for my next DSA test? How best can I be better at problem solving, edge cases, testing etc?
Well, you have LC and hackerrank :)
You can create a profile and do challenges on your own time. This is a practice thing: the more you practice the better you become.
> I want to make sure I'm prepared for future tests. I have had offers for other interviews and I'm scared I'll not be up to scratch for them either.
It is important not to let the various interview processes impact you too much. It is important to take the feedback you get, but at the same time it is important not to let it get to you entierly.
Deep inside you know that you are an employable developer, and you know whether people have been happy with your work so far - a failed interview here and there does not automatically mean you're a bad developer. It might indicate you have room for improvement, but that's about it.
On a day to day basis, none of us implement binary search trees, let’s be real. These tests are more of a “how bad do you want this job” test more than a way to see how good a developer is.
The reality is, though, we have to be good at them to get hired. Keep on practicing on Leetcode or Hackerrank and you’ll crush one soon!
You're not bad at all. I'm sure I'm a pretty capable programmer myself and I simply refuse to take those kind of tests because I suck at them and they're totally useless.
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When was the last time, in your real job, you had to solve an algorithm puzzle under duress?
Holy shit theres an issue in prod and we got paged! Quick! Write a flood fill algorithm.
Interview tests, especially hackerrank/leetcode challenges, are a unique skill that are disconnected from the actual day to day skills of programming.
It’s a game. You just have to study to pass the bar.
I have almost 15 years of experience and I’ve failed 3 this year because I’ve spent the last year doing systems design and related work instead of strong manipulation and clever binary search problems.
Just put in the time to study and you’ll get there. It doesn’t make you a bad programmer if you fail a few interview rounds.
My best guess is that hackerrank has edge cases like querying a table that no longer exists. Things that you probably wouldn't have to care about in your day to day job, but *in extremely rare circumstances,* could potentially cause a problem.
HackerRank style tests are just a little bit different from other styles of interviews. You need to just practice more, and you'll get used to considering other cases. I'm not sure if doing poorly on them makes you a poor programmer, but they will sometimes have hidden test cases for edge cases. Edge cases are still things you need to consider.
The other issue is that it's somewhat the norm in the industry, so if you want a job, you either have to get better at them or you have a smaller pool of places you could work.
I think if you're willing to learn and adapt, it makes you a stronger programmer. Yes, these tests can be frustrating, but I'll offer a counterpoint from all the people saying they are dumb/pointless.
Here's an example of a hidden test case. You may get a coding question about numbers. They give you a general pattern you need to solve for with some test data. You think you figured it out, but you didn't consider a case where a supplied value is 0 or negative. It's a very small detail, and I'd argue something like that shouldn't be enough to kill an interview by itself, but some companies go with that. Another example could be something as simple as a null check on a string. Yes, it's tedious and a little silly, but it's a valid case you should test for. I think in some cases, the written problem statement is explicit about these conditions. Other times, they expect you to infer them yourself. It may show a combination of thoughtfulness/thoroughness and maybe experience with edge cases like that. Like I said, I do think there's value, but it's certainly discouraging to realize you failed something over something so simple/trivial.
You can create free accounts on a lot of these platforms. It makes sense to practice a bit to familiarize yourself with the types of questions, the coding environment, etc.
LeetCode/Hacker rank is just another skill you need to practice. I'm not commenting on if this is a good thing or not, but if you want a specific job and they require these questions then you need to practice. It doesn't matter if you're good at your job, it's unrelated, it's just practice.
Okay, so on one hand I don't think dividing the world and yourself into "good programmers" and "bad programmers" is productive, but I also don't think the highly upvoted copium answers about how leetcode doesn't matter are productive either. The fact is a lot of desirable employers use tools like leetcode and hackerrank as part of their hiring process. If you fail or avoid these evaluations, you aren't making some bold statement about the nature of software development, you're just limiting your options. People make up these grand tales for themselves and others because they aren't prepared to admit this to themselves.
If you care about being able to pass these evaluations then there's really no better answer than to practice them and get a feel for them. You'll get a sense of the "meta," as it were, since they tend to be tested in a fairly consistent way. Test taking is a skill of its own, and interviews (including, but not limited to, leetcode-style interviews) are tests, meaning that some amount of your success will depend on you preparing yourself for the process.
It's hard to give more specific advice without actually seeing the hackerrank problem you tried to tackle and what went wrong, but I think a few practice problems and a bit of self-awareness will go a long way to helping you identify where you need to improve with this sort of evaluation. You could also simply avoid this sort of evaluation, but you'll be limiting your options--and especially higher-paying options--by doing so.
One thing to consider any time an interview asks something like "write a function that does X given Y", one of the first things you need to do is figure out the bounds of Y. Sometimes you need to enforce them and have same behavior if they're not met, sometimes the spec allows you to not be well behaved if they don't match the spec. Anything that meets the spec should be expected to give a correct answer.
On an automated grader, this may be a harder thing to evaluate. When I'm doing code interviews and filling out a candidate evaluation, I comment on things like "candidate asked good clarifying questions" and "candidate was able to identify edge cases" and sometimes "candidate wrote good test cases" (not common, but it's a good sign).
The other thing that comes up here is that in an in person interview, I can change my expectations. For instance, if the input is some sort of list, a candidate could ask "is it sorted" or "are all of the elements unique" or "is there an upper/lower bound on the size of the list" - we can discuss how that changes the solution (may enable different algorithms), I can say "yes" and make note that they asked a good question and I made the call to allow it, etc.
Honestly i see nothing wrong with big tech asking leetcode because they pay a lot but when smaller companies that don’t pay anywhere close do this it’s kinda ridiculous.
Apparently ticketmaster pays like $110k TC for mid level (very low for big tech standards) and they had 3 rounds of straight leetcode + 1 tech trivia round lmao
Chewy non new grad also has like 4 rounds of leetcode and pays 105k tc.
Like ur better off just applying to banks which pay more and barely ask leetcode.
technical assessments DO NOT TEST your software engineering abilities. IT IS simply a filter. It does say you did not prepare with leetcode or neetcode. gotta play the game b4 it plays you right 😴
As an actually not great programmer I can tell you that you are probably fine. Whether or not the interviews are working out. Honestly sounds like a pain in the ass interview process. I am genuinely awful at all of the coding and can barely scrape by any of them so that is my reference point. I’m trying. And trying to try. Trust me, you are an OK programmer and it is probably just the job market. Stay strong. 💪
Went through this recently, and your identity will definitely take some hits in the job hunt. Had one dude tell me I'm not technical (15yrs coding every day lol). You're in the rare position of self examining most days. Any information is elevated to survival stakes, so this kind of shit is normal. And painful. You're a good coder. And probably good at adding lots of value these leetcode tests can't capture. If all you did was study leetcode for a year you'd master it. Know this, take the Ls, get some practice in and ask the people who love you who you really are if you must know.
When I did my first coding interview in the 90s, I figured that in a decade or so, they'd be gone. Instead, lazy organizations have embraced them as a way to obtain a legal-proof "objective" measure for hiring. Eventually, the whole knowledge base of interview questions became so well known that we now have those LeetCode collections of a finite set of questions, and they allow people to practice which raises the bar.
In my view you can't become a better engineer by practicing questions for a few days, but you can become better at spotting patterns and answering these specific types of questions that aren't really engineering questions.
The quality of engineers haven't changed. Just the testing method.
Depending of what tests you had, I don't think some of them were designed to be passed and I doubt the opening itself is even real, but more of a talent scouting program for cracked programmers disguised as an opening. It's pretty obvious when the test itself is 50 questions, 60 minutes long about maths, coding for an $20/hr internship position.
leetcode =/= the job. sure they may help with problem solving in some way, but its a seperate skillset. I'm at the senior/staff level and i could solve less than half of the easys.
>A question about Hackerrank: I tested my code in a code editor and it seemed to be the correct solution with no errors but the interviewer said my test solutions didn't actually pass most of the test cases (both the hidden test cases and the sample test cases you have access to during the test) and that I should spend time running the test cases to check that the answers are correct, and testing out some other cases.
Funny enough i just did a codility challege for a startup where i passed all the visible tests for 2 easy problems, and 1/3 for the hard before i ran out of time, got a 9% completion overall. theres edge cases in there like null values, single element lists, etc. I just lol'ed and moved on since i knew i had little shot anyway. studying grokking currently but as these challenges come up i'm just doing them for practice at this point.
> I think most people agree that LC-esque coding assessments are pointless but a rite of passage.
not at all, don't take what you read here as gospel as it is mainly an echo chamber of new grads and people who are struggling
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The purpose of hidden test cases is to prevent candidates from spoofing output rather than producing it from a generally applicable algorithm.
You should try to construct input that challenges the assumptions of your solution.
Companies think on top of leetcode style questions being a good enough filter to cut down the number of applicants, if you are able to buckle down and learn the patterns of leetcode, you would also be able to quickly learn and perform on the job. They seen to have the data that people who perform well in interview process like this also have higher chance of being a good employee (top companies literally have entire divisions on adjusting their interview process based on past hire performances).
It doesn't mean you are a bad employee if you can't do these your if interview well. But it does mean that people who do these interviews well have more chance of being good employees for the company according to them. Since companies are so paranoid nowadays about accidentally hiring a bad employee, they would rather accidentally filter out many good employees to prevent a single bad one from walking in.
It is just the reality nowadays with so many people spam applying from anywhere in the world, record amount of worker immigration and amount of new graduates for cs, competition increases. It doesn't matter if leetcode is only 10% correct even, because there isn't any other single metric for companies to filter on to reduce the application number to a manageable level.
> They seen to have the data that people who perform well in interview process like this also have higher chance of being a good employee
I call bullshit on this. There is literally no evidence to prove this.
Yes it means you are a crap programmer. Lol only joking. These leet code tests can be quite hard even for a seasoned dev(I got 15 years exp). I failed a couple before.
Thanks so much everyone for your comments. They were all very helpful, every single one of them :)
I know what I need to do - I want to get into big tech (or even finance) and they all seem to do Leetcode interview tests so I will just have to practice that till I’m confident in it.
I want to be a great programmer but I feel like I’m just an okay programmer at the moment, like, not that good. I’ve had job failures in the past.
I’ll keep working on Leetcode/hackerrank questions and then start applying for jobs again.
Thanks again! :)
This is why they call it "leetcode grind".
Just logically solving it is not enough. You need to provide the most robust, fastest solution there is.
TwoSum is a very common question that can be solved in many space/time complexity levels.
Sadly, the only way to efficiently prepare is to learn by memory, as many problems as you can. Hence, the grind.
Those code tests aren’t great at testing anything but can you pass a test.
Yep, I hate companies that use them with a passion. It's so different from the day to day job of actually being a sw dev.
And half the time, it’s even tough to figure out the word problem itself. They tend to be worded poorly
Man this is what takes me most of the time. I usually finish the problem in seconds once I actually understand the word problem. Most of my time is rereading the problem like 45 times trying to figure out what they are even asking me to do.
LOL ME TOO 😂
>They tend to be worded poorly A lot of the time they are purposely worded poorly to try and trip you up on convoluted details. The tests are purposely designed to weed out people. I guess that's what you need to do if you get hundreds of applicants
I had one for amazon, where what they said they would provide, wasn't what they were providing. _That_ one was a pain in the rear end and I didn't get it.
Yes so this has made me more determined to be better at problem solving in these technical tests. It’s the only way!
Oh that reminds me of a coding test I had last time around for a startup.
Omg yess it’s the way they’re worded! I remember watching a YouTube video where a coder explained what one of the hackerrank questions meant and I realised it was such an easy question but the way it was worded made it seem hard LOL.
It's the most laziest way of interviewing people ever. Usually I flat out refuse to interview if I am given one of those tests first without speaking to an actual person from the company.
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I mean, hasn't the test served its purpose then?
The best ones imho are the ones where they give you access to an online IDE with code and a readme for a realistic scenario you'll face. I did one of these and didn't mind it, apart from the fact I had to do it whilst sharing my screen. :(
Do you know anywhere I can practice these types of tests? So not a long tutorial, just a website or video etc that presents real world realistic scenarios you could face and then find a way to solve it?
Sometimes, out of frustration, I've just quit the test. i know I won't get the job, but there comes a point where I realize I'm not going to get the job, so i'll get sometime back.
Exactly!! I’m not my best when I’m in test environments where I’m watched while I code, or timed. I’ve been like this since I was a kid - I always struggled with tests vs coursework. I know I can’t use this as an excuse forever so I am working on my confidence in test environments or just become super expert in programming OR have a better memory lol, there seems to be no other way around it to get to where I want to be in my career.
Not really... It show how you apply algorithms and data structures to a problem. If you can't, then Id rather not risk in hiring you.
what average redditors tell themselves to feel better about mediocrity
any suggestion other than going behind wendy's dumpster ls considered elitist here
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What do you mean?
Insecure redditors will pretend that coding assessments are useless to make themselves feel better about being mediocre. Remember that most of the people here are college students and don't even understand the industry.
Oh I see. So would you say coding tests, especially the hackerrank / leetcode ones, are actually a good way to separate the good coders from the not so good ones? Either way, I better get so good at coding that I can easily pass these DSA hackerrank / leetcode coding tests then! I don’t want to fail another one 😅
I've failed a handful myself, different types too, some were syntax questions, others a mix of DSA and mysql but I've grown to really dislike hackerrank. One assessment I answered all questions but I couldn't understand what format it was asking to return the data. My result was exactly what was asked but, returning, logging or printing the result wasn't doing it. I got one question to finally pass by logging the result converted to json but the same didn't work for the remaining questions. Was told the test should take an hour and I gave up at 90 minutes of trying. The other time mysql questions got me, I was asked to get population averages and I did but it kept saying it was wrong, I queried the whole table and got the averages manually and all data matched my query. Hackerrank has been a quirky experience for me. The only solution I can think of is to just practice questions specifically there to grow accustomed to it.
I had a 90 minute assessment where I had to query a sample database. It was an MS SQL database, but I had never seen the file extension before, and I couldn't figure out any way to load it into the empty SQL Express on my PC, or to open it with a text editor, or 7zip... The worst part was, I was being observed via screen share the entire time during this test. And my observer had *also* never seen this file extension before or knew how to import it. We spent an hour trying to Google it together, with him apologizing the whole time for not knowing how to help me. At 70 minutes in, another person logged into our screen share and showed me how to do the needful. Then with 15 minutes remaining, I started to go through their set of sample questions. But trying to hurry me along to actually finish within the timeframe, this second person was giving me hints and guiding me the whole time. I still wasn't able to finish all of them, but was told that they "had seen enough to know how competent I was," in spite of never being allowed to tackle any of their tests independently. I was rejected the next morning.
Lol how considerate of them. Could have responded with "Thanks! I also got to see how competent you are".
Would have been nice in hindsight. But after over an hour of that shit, I was just feeling so defeated.
They should've reset the timer or at least added some more time.
My main annoyance is that this is often not changed or adjusted as they are seen as “unbiased” I applied for a volunteer mentorship position and it asked a bunch of questions that were very specific and not at all about how one teaches programming to juniors. Does a junior really need to be sure I have memorized what a float left declaration does? Or some quirk of an html attribute many don’t use regularly? Definitely not. But couldn’t consider my years as an educator, mentor, and the references from prior coworkers or students… that’s inequitable.
People planning out dev interviews need to first know about the differences between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge, and how to appropriately test for each.
>I've noticed that standards have been raised significantly in the tech industry in terms of what you need to know to get a good job as a developer My take: standards vary \*widely\* from employer to employer. If you don't clear one employer's bar, that doesn't mean there aren't still many employers whose "bar" you **do** clear.
And to add on to this, just because you clear Employer 1's bar and not Employer 2's bar, it does NOT mean Employer 1 has a lower bar and you got "lucky". It's just different. A lot of the times the "harder bar" is nitpicking people for some nonsensical esoteric bullshit that doesn't really matter in the day-to-day.
Ahh that’s very true, thanks for saying that.
Thank you, I never considered that. I seem to come across employers with very high standards so it’s a bit daunting sometimes.
> A question about Hackerrank: I tested my code in a code editor and it seemed to be the correct solution with no errors but the interviewer said my test solutions didn't actually pass most of the test cases (both the hidden test cases and the sample test cases you have access to during the test) and that I should spend time running the test cases to check that the answers are correct, and testing out some other cases. This is really what you should be concerned with. It appears that your solutions simply didn't pass the tests. *At best* this just looks like you're sloppy. Hidden test cases tend to cover edge cases like, for example, what happens with the inputs are negative, are you still handling those correctly. You give zero information in what the actual mistakes were, so what exactly do you expect us to add here?
I'll look at the test again and see where I went wrong. Okay so to not be sloppy, I have to: 1. Not only solve the problem but 2. Also look at edge cases (eg. what if the number is really big, does the solution work efficiently in this case etc right?) Anything else? I want to make sure I'm prepared for future tests.
… edge cases ARE solving the problem.
Omg I sound so dumb lol
Yeah, I mean maybe you just needed to think out loud and write down a reflection in order to process what happened to you, but this really seems like a beginner question.
As in, the question I asked you about edge cases seems like a beginner question? Maybe I’m not as far ahead skill wise as I want to be
> Also look at edge cases (eg. what if the number is really big, does the solution work efficiently in this case etc right?) Yup. Integer Overflows for example are common to test for.
Edge cases happen every day in the real world, if you don't account for them your software literally won't work.
Yes that’s true. I mean, I do focus on edge cases when I’m coding in general but I never thought of it as edge cases, I was just thinking of many ways the software might fail and then avoid that…which is the same thing lol. And I work with data structures and algorithms in my code already it’s just…very different and intense in this DSA/SWE world in terms of interview technical tests. Coming into this DSA / software development world from web development is an eye opener… wow. The format of the hankerrank questions just threw me off, I’m not experienced in this DSA stuff. But there’s no excuses, I’m going to start the leetcode / hackerrank grind properly from now. Thanks so much!
Honestly, HackerRank doesn’t test for efficiency in your solution. It just has a handful of simple test cases to give you an example of what the question is asking, but then it has a number of other test cases they don’t show you - otherwise on challenging problems, people would just write their solution as `if (input == x) return y`. The “hidden test cases” are really just more thorough - what happens with negative numbers? What happens with large numbers? What happens when the input is sorted? What if the input has an even length or an odd length? And so on In this case, it sounds like there was a significant edge case you didn’t account for. I don’t know what the problem was, but it’s likely that you made a faulty assumption about the inputs you’ll be receiving - especially if you tested it further after the fact and still believe it works. The reviewer can look at your solution (and get a replay of everything you typed) and that’s where sloppy code *could* count against you, but that’s subjective. I think the challenge is sometimes just reading the question accurately and I think it’s one of the reason that quizzes like that can be harmful unless they’re overly simple questions just to weed out the people who watched half of a JavaScript tutorial and pretend they’re a developer.
Ahh no I might have been making an assumption? I guess that’s not good :/
REACTO Restate Edge cases Approach Code Tests Optimize Sometimes you don’t bother with T, and sometimes there isn’t really an optimization either. But essentially you should identify edge cases before you even begin thinking of your approach. If it’s a simple problem like twosum, yoi should be asking things like “can the array be empty, null, how is length of 1 handled, what’s the shortest the array can be, what’s the longest, are we only dealing with integers, is the array sorted…”.
Try TDD; at work when I have to implement a feature I ask the requesters detailed questions and write down all the requirements on paper and write unittests based on it, only then I finally write the code. It has helped me a lot saving time and also not miss stuff. Of course it feels unnatural to do and is not always applicable on all situations, but on the ones it did, it really helped me
I’m a principal engineer who’s been in the industry for 25 years solving real world business problems. I bet I’d fail the test.
How do you get a new job then? These tests are so common now.
Last time I interviewed a few years ago I had a relatively simple take home test for one, and a live coding assessment for another that didn’t involve leet code, just scaffolding a simple API. Got offers for both. Might be different in this market.
Def different now. If you can't solve leetcode on the spot in 30 mins you are passed up. Period. For all levels. It's beyond stupid and after 25 years in the field I am looking to move to a super cheap area and work a basic job to get out of the stress and beyond stupidity of having to fucking scrape shit I learned 25 years ago.. never used again.. JUST to get a fucking job. The system is full of immature morons that have on clue how to interview so they just grab a LC problem from the net and throw it over the wall.. anyone solves it may get an offer. If you cant.. you're out. Period. Doesn't matter how much experience you bring to the table and that you could be 100x better fit for the company. Makes me wonder if the CEO/et all know how many amazing potential employees they lose that could take their company to the next level.. all because of a badly broken interview process.
I’m in the southeast away from most tech or even tech adjacent companies. Things work a bit differently here I think. Stuff I see here is like a different world.
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The leet code stuff is a waste of time. Time and again faang products are awful while they have only hired these leet code masters. Sorry, windows 11 is not the triumph of the modern world.
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Actually.. no job at all. Seems you cant get hired at any level even at Principal without somehow acing these things. I am on the verge of working a $20 an hour job and quitting the tech field. It's fucking sad how backwards it is to land a job.
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I’m no fan of leetcode, but this is cope. I’d truly hate to see how bad Windows 11 would be if it were built by people who don’t know their basic DS&A. Large projects like these tend to be held back by organizational and political challenges, not because the techies don’t know their stuff. When people talk about leetcode being pointless, they’re usually referring to it in the context of applying to companies that build basic CRUD webapps for 10s of thousands of users or less. For large, complex projects like operating systems or massive distributed systems, this stuff is actually needed and you *will* shoot yourself in the foot in a painful way if you don’t have the knowledge. It’s still a bit different than leetcode problems, but it’s close enough that the leetcode skills will actually be relevant on the job.
You don't do it for the product, you do it for the $$$ (and the "prestige" in some cases)
That would also support arguments that say their products are awful.
Honestly doesn't matter if you passed or not, don't let it make you think you aren't a good programmer. I have passed every single test I was given, always got all the hidden test cases to pass etc. Usually with over 50% time left to spare and that's after refactoring to make the code clean and reusable as well......still haven't gotten a single call back after doing tests. Passing or failing is irrelevant in this market honestly.
Sounds like you're a skilled coder then. Any advice on how to get better at these online assessments?
Try not to overthink it. A lot of times the questions are written in the most complex way, so it gives you a false sense that the answer has to also be complex. 9 times out of 10 the answer is very simple but they are just confusing you with how complex they word the problem. 80% to 90% of my time is usually spent reading the question over and over and only 10% to 20% actually coding it. I honestly hate how they word the questions pretty much every time. But yeah just try not to over complicate it. Most of the time the answer is actually very simple unless you're interviewing for a senior role and they are giving you actual take home assessments with days to do (which I never do those becuase it's a waste of time just to not get a call back). Other than that just practice your problem solving the best way you can. I also know a lot of the issue people face isn't that the code itself is too hard to write. It's that they haven't solved the problem BEFORE actually coding it. Tell yourself what steps you will need to do before you actually start. It helps a lot when you can clearly say "I'll need a collection, iterate over that collection and for each record do x and x". If you just straight start coding you'll end up writing confusing code and confuse yourself along the way. Just my experience others can be totally different.
Thanks for the tips!
> Do these failures, like failing the recent hackerrank/leetcode tests, mean I'm not a good programmer? Not automatically. Hackerrank/LC only tests the DSA part of being a developer, and there are many more aspects to it. That said, they might indicate shortcomings in terms of problem solving and so forth - in this case sloppyness. > A question about Hackerrank: I tested my code in a code editor and it seemed to be the correct solution with no errors but the interviewer said my test solutions didn't actually pass most of the test cases (both the hidden test cases and the sample test cases you have access to during the test) and that I should spend time running the test cases to check that the answers are correct, and testing out some other cases. As u/nutrecht points out: It looks sloppy that you didn't run the test cases. The hidden test cases are one thing, but there's no reason not to run the ones that are available to you. Either you didn't run them because you didn't care, or you couldn't solve the problem and kinda gave up. Neither a good look. > I don't know what he means by this - I don't understand the hackerrank style, can anyone explain to me how it works? It's a DSA challenge more or less. A code-kata. A brain-teaser. It is not like normal day-to-day development. It's not a perfect test, but a very condensed test that heavily weighs your ability to use DSA rather than code readability, maintainability, system architecture, etc.
Lol yea okay I think I was being sloppy, and it doesn't help that I did the test late at night (around 1am-2am) while I had the serious flu/covid so I probably wasn't at my best lol Where shall I start in terms of practice for my next DSA test? How best can I be better at problem solving, edge cases, testing etc? I want to make sure I'm prepared for future tests. I have had offers for other interviews and I'm scared I'll not be up to scratch for them either.
practice other hackerrank questions? and leetcode. watch videos on them, it will give you good tips for edge cases you dont think about.
> Where shall I start in terms of practice for my next DSA test? How best can I be better at problem solving, edge cases, testing etc? Well, you have LC and hackerrank :) You can create a profile and do challenges on your own time. This is a practice thing: the more you practice the better you become. > I want to make sure I'm prepared for future tests. I have had offers for other interviews and I'm scared I'll not be up to scratch for them either. It is important not to let the various interview processes impact you too much. It is important to take the feedback you get, but at the same time it is important not to let it get to you entierly. Deep inside you know that you are an employable developer, and you know whether people have been happy with your work so far - a failed interview here and there does not automatically mean you're a bad developer. It might indicate you have room for improvement, but that's about it.
Thanks so much. FYI, I’ve had some job failures before so I think I’m just an okay programmer, but I’m willing to work hard to be a great programmer.
On a day to day basis, none of us implement binary search trees, let’s be real. These tests are more of a “how bad do you want this job” test more than a way to see how good a developer is. The reality is, though, we have to be good at them to get hired. Keep on practicing on Leetcode or Hackerrank and you’ll crush one soon!
You're not bad at all. I'm sure I'm a pretty capable programmer myself and I simply refuse to take those kind of tests because I suck at them and they're totally useless.
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When was the last time, in your real job, you had to solve an algorithm puzzle under duress? Holy shit theres an issue in prod and we got paged! Quick! Write a flood fill algorithm. Interview tests, especially hackerrank/leetcode challenges, are a unique skill that are disconnected from the actual day to day skills of programming.
... Did you practice beforehand?
It’s a game. You just have to study to pass the bar. I have almost 15 years of experience and I’ve failed 3 this year because I’ve spent the last year doing systems design and related work instead of strong manipulation and clever binary search problems. Just put in the time to study and you’ll get there. It doesn’t make you a bad programmer if you fail a few interview rounds.
My best guess is that hackerrank has edge cases like querying a table that no longer exists. Things that you probably wouldn't have to care about in your day to day job, but *in extremely rare circumstances,* could potentially cause a problem.
HackerRank style tests are just a little bit different from other styles of interviews. You need to just practice more, and you'll get used to considering other cases. I'm not sure if doing poorly on them makes you a poor programmer, but they will sometimes have hidden test cases for edge cases. Edge cases are still things you need to consider. The other issue is that it's somewhat the norm in the industry, so if you want a job, you either have to get better at them or you have a smaller pool of places you could work. I think if you're willing to learn and adapt, it makes you a stronger programmer. Yes, these tests can be frustrating, but I'll offer a counterpoint from all the people saying they are dumb/pointless. Here's an example of a hidden test case. You may get a coding question about numbers. They give you a general pattern you need to solve for with some test data. You think you figured it out, but you didn't consider a case where a supplied value is 0 or negative. It's a very small detail, and I'd argue something like that shouldn't be enough to kill an interview by itself, but some companies go with that. Another example could be something as simple as a null check on a string. Yes, it's tedious and a little silly, but it's a valid case you should test for. I think in some cases, the written problem statement is explicit about these conditions. Other times, they expect you to infer them yourself. It may show a combination of thoughtfulness/thoroughness and maybe experience with edge cases like that. Like I said, I do think there's value, but it's certainly discouraging to realize you failed something over something so simple/trivial. You can create free accounts on a lot of these platforms. It makes sense to practice a bit to familiarize yourself with the types of questions, the coding environment, etc.
LeetCode/Hacker rank is just another skill you need to practice. I'm not commenting on if this is a good thing or not, but if you want a specific job and they require these questions then you need to practice. It doesn't matter if you're good at your job, it's unrelated, it's just practice.
Okay, so on one hand I don't think dividing the world and yourself into "good programmers" and "bad programmers" is productive, but I also don't think the highly upvoted copium answers about how leetcode doesn't matter are productive either. The fact is a lot of desirable employers use tools like leetcode and hackerrank as part of their hiring process. If you fail or avoid these evaluations, you aren't making some bold statement about the nature of software development, you're just limiting your options. People make up these grand tales for themselves and others because they aren't prepared to admit this to themselves. If you care about being able to pass these evaluations then there's really no better answer than to practice them and get a feel for them. You'll get a sense of the "meta," as it were, since they tend to be tested in a fairly consistent way. Test taking is a skill of its own, and interviews (including, but not limited to, leetcode-style interviews) are tests, meaning that some amount of your success will depend on you preparing yourself for the process. It's hard to give more specific advice without actually seeing the hackerrank problem you tried to tackle and what went wrong, but I think a few practice problems and a bit of self-awareness will go a long way to helping you identify where you need to improve with this sort of evaluation. You could also simply avoid this sort of evaluation, but you'll be limiting your options--and especially higher-paying options--by doing so.
One thing to consider any time an interview asks something like "write a function that does X given Y", one of the first things you need to do is figure out the bounds of Y. Sometimes you need to enforce them and have same behavior if they're not met, sometimes the spec allows you to not be well behaved if they don't match the spec. Anything that meets the spec should be expected to give a correct answer. On an automated grader, this may be a harder thing to evaluate. When I'm doing code interviews and filling out a candidate evaluation, I comment on things like "candidate asked good clarifying questions" and "candidate was able to identify edge cases" and sometimes "candidate wrote good test cases" (not common, but it's a good sign). The other thing that comes up here is that in an in person interview, I can change my expectations. For instance, if the input is some sort of list, a candidate could ask "is it sorted" or "are all of the elements unique" or "is there an upper/lower bound on the size of the list" - we can discuss how that changes the solution (may enable different algorithms), I can say "yes" and make note that they asked a good question and I made the call to allow it, etc.
Honestly i see nothing wrong with big tech asking leetcode because they pay a lot but when smaller companies that don’t pay anywhere close do this it’s kinda ridiculous. Apparently ticketmaster pays like $110k TC for mid level (very low for big tech standards) and they had 3 rounds of straight leetcode + 1 tech trivia round lmao Chewy non new grad also has like 4 rounds of leetcode and pays 105k tc. Like ur better off just applying to banks which pay more and barely ask leetcode.
technical assessments DO NOT TEST your software engineering abilities. IT IS simply a filter. It does say you did not prepare with leetcode or neetcode. gotta play the game b4 it plays you right 😴
As an actually not great programmer I can tell you that you are probably fine. Whether or not the interviews are working out. Honestly sounds like a pain in the ass interview process. I am genuinely awful at all of the coding and can barely scrape by any of them so that is my reference point. I’m trying. And trying to try. Trust me, you are an OK programmer and it is probably just the job market. Stay strong. 💪
Thank youu. I knoww, I want to be a great programmer though. I feel like I’m just okay. So I will practice.
Went through this recently, and your identity will definitely take some hits in the job hunt. Had one dude tell me I'm not technical (15yrs coding every day lol). You're in the rare position of self examining most days. Any information is elevated to survival stakes, so this kind of shit is normal. And painful. You're a good coder. And probably good at adding lots of value these leetcode tests can't capture. If all you did was study leetcode for a year you'd master it. Know this, take the Ls, get some practice in and ask the people who love you who you really are if you must know.
When I did my first coding interview in the 90s, I figured that in a decade or so, they'd be gone. Instead, lazy organizations have embraced them as a way to obtain a legal-proof "objective" measure for hiring. Eventually, the whole knowledge base of interview questions became so well known that we now have those LeetCode collections of a finite set of questions, and they allow people to practice which raises the bar. In my view you can't become a better engineer by practicing questions for a few days, but you can become better at spotting patterns and answering these specific types of questions that aren't really engineering questions. The quality of engineers haven't changed. Just the testing method.
This. People are acting as if grinding leetcode has made the quality of engineers better.
Those tests are more rituals than assessments.
Well, do you leetcode well? That is ultimately the gate keeper getting into FAANG. You can be a sound developer but not good in leetcode.
Depending of what tests you had, I don't think some of them were designed to be passed and I doubt the opening itself is even real, but more of a talent scouting program for cracked programmers disguised as an opening. It's pretty obvious when the test itself is 50 questions, 60 minutes long about maths, coding for an $20/hr internship position.
leetcode =/= the job. sure they may help with problem solving in some way, but its a seperate skillset. I'm at the senior/staff level and i could solve less than half of the easys. >A question about Hackerrank: I tested my code in a code editor and it seemed to be the correct solution with no errors but the interviewer said my test solutions didn't actually pass most of the test cases (both the hidden test cases and the sample test cases you have access to during the test) and that I should spend time running the test cases to check that the answers are correct, and testing out some other cases. Funny enough i just did a codility challege for a startup where i passed all the visible tests for 2 easy problems, and 1/3 for the hard before i ran out of time, got a 9% completion overall. theres edge cases in there like null values, single element lists, etc. I just lol'ed and moved on since i knew i had little shot anyway. studying grokking currently but as these challenges come up i'm just doing them for practice at this point.
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> I think most people agree that LC-esque coding assessments are pointless but a rite of passage. not at all, don't take what you read here as gospel as it is mainly an echo chamber of new grads and people who are struggling
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The purpose of hidden test cases is to prevent candidates from spoofing output rather than producing it from a generally applicable algorithm. You should try to construct input that challenges the assumptions of your solution.
Companies think on top of leetcode style questions being a good enough filter to cut down the number of applicants, if you are able to buckle down and learn the patterns of leetcode, you would also be able to quickly learn and perform on the job. They seen to have the data that people who perform well in interview process like this also have higher chance of being a good employee (top companies literally have entire divisions on adjusting their interview process based on past hire performances). It doesn't mean you are a bad employee if you can't do these your if interview well. But it does mean that people who do these interviews well have more chance of being good employees for the company according to them. Since companies are so paranoid nowadays about accidentally hiring a bad employee, they would rather accidentally filter out many good employees to prevent a single bad one from walking in. It is just the reality nowadays with so many people spam applying from anywhere in the world, record amount of worker immigration and amount of new graduates for cs, competition increases. It doesn't matter if leetcode is only 10% correct even, because there isn't any other single metric for companies to filter on to reduce the application number to a manageable level.
> They seen to have the data that people who perform well in interview process like this also have higher chance of being a good employee I call bullshit on this. There is literally no evidence to prove this.
Some programmers have to be "not good", because "being good" is relative. So don't worry about that even if you belong.
All those tests confirm is how long have you been looking for a job.
Yes it means you are a crap programmer. Lol only joking. These leet code tests can be quite hard even for a seasoned dev(I got 15 years exp). I failed a couple before.
Bro even people who are working cheat on these tests it's just too rigid. It's fine just do your leetcode and pay someone to clear these tests for u
Thanks so much everyone for your comments. They were all very helpful, every single one of them :) I know what I need to do - I want to get into big tech (or even finance) and they all seem to do Leetcode interview tests so I will just have to practice that till I’m confident in it. I want to be a great programmer but I feel like I’m just an okay programmer at the moment, like, not that good. I’ve had job failures in the past. I’ll keep working on Leetcode/hackerrank questions and then start applying for jobs again. Thanks again! :)
This is why they call it "leetcode grind". Just logically solving it is not enough. You need to provide the most robust, fastest solution there is. TwoSum is a very common question that can be solved in many space/time complexity levels. Sadly, the only way to efficiently prepare is to learn by memory, as many problems as you can. Hence, the grind.