Not to imply that you're wrong, but I've always been bad at LC interviews, but surprisingly (for myself) passable when called upon to troubleshoot and code up a hot fix in the middle of the night. Maybe those are not entirely similar types of pressures.
Re:Why Layoffs Don't Work
by lubujackson on Sunday March 09, 2025 @08:14PM
(#43315393)
There is a big difference between solving a critical bug, which is your job, vs. passing an arbitrary leetcode test from a disinterested 22 year old where you might lose your house if you get it wrong. You have 15 minutes.
Re:Why Layoffs Don't Work
by WalterBright on Sunday March 09, 2025 @09:29PM
(#43315979)
The cure for such fears is to:
1. study the leetcode books in advance
2. do lots of interviews
In the military, there's a saying: train hard => fight easy
Re:Why Layoffs Don't Work
by quinnirill on Sunday March 09, 2025 @05:41PM
(#43314186)
It’s also not the same kind of stress. I’ve interviewed many a candidate who were sweating and/or shaking at some point of the interview (with heavy reassurance and me trying to to steer the conversation towards and area where they feel stronger), but they can often end up being calm and reliable alert responders nonetheless. So far I’ve seen very little if any correlation between being able to handle interview stress and on-call stress.
> Tough on call rotations happen, and you might need someone that does well under pressure at 3 am in the morning.
On a stop-the-world production incident at 3am I know that codebase like the back of my hand, and my job very likely doesn’t depend on whether I solve it in the next 30m. There’s barely anything stressful about it.
On an interview, with my future on the line, and presented with an unfamiliar problem?
Re:Why Layoffs Don't Work
by doktorhladnjak on Sunday March 09, 2025 @07:12PM
(#43314939)
Leetcode performance isn’t going to be representative of 3am incident response though. If that matters, you’re probably better off asking a classic “tell me about a time you responded to a page in the middle of the night” type question.
It's not as if testing for performance under stress is useless: Tough on call rotations happen, and you might need someone that does well under pressure at 3 am in the morning. But the picture you get on a screening isn't as clear as it appears.