This is something I've been grappling with for a while as I have started considering looking for a new job.
I've been working at one of the big 5 (do we still call them that?) for the past 5 years and it seems that every company in the industry, large or small, has not only escalated the whiteboard hazing rituals, but entered in to a full-on arms race where the difficulty of problems one can expect has spiraled out of control and become a game of "we both know you memorized this solution but let's pretend you're coming up with it from first principles wink".
At the time, I also had copious amounts of free time with which to spend hours each day grinding leetcode problems online.
Not only do I not have that time any more, I don't have the inclination to do so. Spending 20 (or more!) additional hours each week doing nothing but solving algorithm problems sounds like an egregious waste of time.
And grind problems I would otherwise have to - my day-to-day is focused on delivering quality software and leading a team, I haven't had to write an algorithm to invert a binary tree, or find triplets in an array that satisfy a geometric sequence once.
Even recruiters seem to be getting in on the action themselves. I recently spoke with a recruiter at another of the big 5, and, during the initial conversation, they started asking basic questions such as "which of these algorithms is O(nlogn)". After answering a few of them I politely told them I was no longer interested and ended the conversation.
At this point I think I've come to terms that my only real options are remain where I'm at until the end of my career (and if I ever get fired or laid off I don't know what I'll do), or go back to school and pursue a different career in a field that respects people and trusts them.
I just don't see the industry changing for the better here. If anything, it has gotten significantly, noticeably, horrifically worse since I was last engaged in this process.
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21110570
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