Social signaling is too important not to engage in "nonsense" on occasion. Geeks resist this, thinking that their special flavor of technical knowledge, which they alone possess, should transcend a million years of evolution that produced monkeysphere dynamics. The situation is laden with all manner of irony.

This is a straw man: choosing not to work for fools is not opting out of social signaling.

If you know how to program, you have lots of options.

> choosing not to work for fools is not opting out of social signaling.

That depends entirely on how you choose to define "fools".

Agreed. I am quite ok with being a "fool", if it means working for a FAANG tier company and collecting FAANG tier compensation.

I am not going to disadvantage myself by refusing to participate in this on some questionable principle. While I agree that Leetcode-style interviews are not the overall best, I am yet to come up with an alternative that addresses all those issues without introducing massive new ones. So it is a compromise. And as long as this compromise stands, I am fully intending on getting the most out of it.

Leetcode prep is still better than spending hours on a take home assignment where the work often doesn’t transfer to other interviews.

Personally I think 6 Leetcode interview loops is better than 6 take homes, but that’s just me.

I agree, but I don't think this is a place where it is fair to expect developers to "vote with their feet" and not participate in these interviews. The companies who do data structures and algorithms interviews seem to pay the highest in the industry

You have to pay a lot (+ a lot of perks) to get folks to tolerate the amount of bullshit you put up with at a FAANG.

There is a world of other more enjoyable and educational opportunities out there they must compete with. And so the cash shovel must be pulled out.

People vote with their feet, and then a new generation of fresh grads are lured by the pay to fill their role. They’ll grow sick of it in a few years, rinse and repeat.

JN

Arguably you have a chance to change things from the inside once you’re in.

I know it’s not a good advice in general, but regarding recruiting in particular, it’s a more realistic proposition.

I don’t disagree. You can choose to interview at places that do not perform these types of interviews.