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Comment by azemetre | Hacker News Reader

Eh IDK. Leetcode type questions are starting to slip into many industries and types of companies. I recently interviewed at large finance (not trading firms, retail banking/investment) and insurance companies. They both asked LC medium/hard.

I was honestly taken a back. These companies aren’t known for “high” standards and make up for the lack of interesting work with WLB (or at least it comes across like that.

Just like how everyone copied google Qs a decade ago (how many toothpicks can a tree yield...). I’m fully expecting everyone to copy FAANG like interviews because someone in HR thinks it might signal better hires, and why wouldn’t you want better hires right?

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Not at a FAANG company but I will ask stuff that might show up as “easy” on leet code.

Examples: run length encoding problem or a bit extracting/setting question. I want to see if the candidate can formulate a simple state machine and they understand bit manipulation. I target the bit manipulation questions for firmware/embedded software roles, which very much involves reading and setting bits from hardware registers all day long.

So if they ask the same questions at Google and same at BigInsuranceCo, why work for a lower salary at BigInsuranceCo.

If the interview is the same, you are better off working at some one who pays better. As a side effect eventually there could across the board better pay.

That's what I'm wondering myself. I've been taking more time to adequately prepare for faang, because as you said why not work for the company that pays more if the interview is nearly the same?

Yup, this. While I'm sure there is some corner of the US tech industry that doesn't leetcode you during interviews, it's getting smaller and smaller.

Companies that wouldn't have leetcoded you 5, 10, years ago are now doing so. The difficulty of leetcode questions is going up too.

Also, takehome problems are becoming more common - not instead of leetcode interviews, but in addition to.

I work for a government and have interviewed for other governments. They have Hacker Rank stuff too.

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