alt Hacker News>The point of these problems is to test your cleverness.
No it's just memorization of 12 or so specific patterns. The stakes are too high that virtually everyone going in will not be staking passing on their own inherent problem solving ability. LeetCode has been so thoroughly gamified that it has lost all utility of differentiability beyond willingness to prepare.
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erikerikson • yesterday at 4:15 PM
Given this consider that LeetCode solving is rarely ever part of your work. So then, what are they selecting for with the habit?
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jkubicek • yesterday at 4:10 PM
In defense of questions like this, “willingness to prepare” is a significant differentiator
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Yeah, it tests if the candidate enjoys the programming-adjacent puzzle game of LeetCode, which is a perfectly decent game to play, but it is just a signal.
If somebody grinds LeetCode while hating it, it signals they are really desperate for a job and willing to jump through hoops for you.
If somebody actually enjoys this kind of stuff, that is probably a signal that they are a rare premium nerd and you should hire them. But the probably play Project Euler as well (is that still up?).
If somebody figures out a one-trick to minmax their LeetCode score… I dunno, I guess it means they are aware of the game and want to solve it efficiently. That seems clever to me…