Don’t want to do Leetcode? Me neither — after I left Airbnb I vowed to not work at any company that asks this kind of question. I interviewed at a bunch of interesting companies (Airtable, Brex, Eaze, Figma, Lob, Notion, ...) none of which asked this kind of algo brain teaser question. There are tons of places out there with great product, interesting problems, and good compensation - so if you hate this bullshit, don’t give up.
I interview candidates every day, and my impression is that a candidate from FAANG/leetcode company is no better or worse than any other candidate.
Anywho, I’m hiring for a bunch of roles - full stack, Android, infra, SRE, early career, etc - if you’re interested in Notion (https://www.notion.so/careers) ping me on Twitter @jitl.
I'm just gonna glom on to this for visibility, but I'd like to say I wish there was a good list of companies that don't do leetcode-style interviews.
Frankly, I'm sick of leetcode, and I feel like it takes a lot of fun out of working in tech to have to grind this skill that's completely unrelated to any sort of real work. (Rant mode off)
Anybody know of such a list?
Edit: I should add that I'd really like to be pointed toward companies that use a structured interview process. Literally fewer than 1 in 10 SF tech companies seems to have any idea what they're doing when it comes to interviewing, and a structured interview process goes a long way toward fixing that deficiency.
I'm familiar with the "hiring without whiteboards" list, and that does't seem to be quite what I'm looking for.
Do you want companies that don't do leetcode, or companies that don't do leetcode yet pay you a FANG salary? The list of companies that don't do leetcode are probably quite long, but you're looking at an average salary in an average town(i.e. $120-180k/year salary with decent benefits and meager stock opportunities). There's nothing wrong with that. I'd certainly go that route if I could afford to. If you're looking at making above average pay, you'll probably have to jump through those hoops though.
For what it's worth, as an "embedded guy" who went into programming with a EE degree and no algorithm experience, I used to loathe the leetcode dance. After working at a FANG where I actually needed to know some of that stuff, I now don't see it as pure evil. Sure, it's a bit overboard, but some of the problems you'll encounter at some of these companies really do require a level of competence and dedication that is something I rarely encountered in 20 years outside the valley. Maybe it's the particular company I ended up at, but I am working with some insanely smart and dedicated folks. I definitely do not belong among them but it's certainly been a learning experience and something I'm thankful for.