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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

> I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field.

These pressures are why I can barely bother landing a software role anymore.

I'm competing with people that have real pressure to study these algorithm brainteasers, switch into system architecture mode, and then switch into behavioral mode.

"Oh thats cute you spent 45 minutes a few times a week doing a brainteaser? I just did 600 of those in a month, and rehearsed what my quirky but culturally similar hobby is."

the what now?

This is out of control. Yes, I am competing with H1B's that have 60 days to figure it out, no, that doesn't make "immigrants" the problem, this is a symptom of a system broken in several ways, from public policy to tech private sector norms.

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And most of these tests are basically bullshit, in terms of real world impact.

What's the contest here? Who's most desperate, most willing to sacrifice their life and health for pennies on the dollar?

Seriously. I'm a middle aged guy with kids and parents to take care of. I'm not in a position to spend 30 hours / week doing bullshit puzzles & memorizing an algo book for crap that is basically irrelevant to my job.

You know what I'm good at?

- Spotting the bug before it happens, by watching how the team interacts and who is checking their work...

- Parsing client requirements and finding what matters

- Duct tape engineering so we can hit a go-live date when everything else is a smoking pile of delayed dog-shit...

- Talking the client into dropping a feature that we can't deliver and pivoting into something we already have...

Generally of far higher value than some brain teasers...

I'm good at that too, have none of the obligations you do and am just as put off by it.

The market values my skills, but I have to do this stuff on my own now. You can make more than big tech will pay you by building in the crypto assets sector by yourself. In the recent past it was just side-gig consulting at an hourly rate or trying to do bug bounties.

Now you can just hang out on Telegram or Wechat and learn what people need, get paid completely in Tether from people all around the world. Invest in that ecosystem, or get dollars, whatever you want. No, wait times for anything.

Any tips on where to get started developing crypto assets? Learn how to build Ethereum smart contracts?

Developing crypto assets is ONE thing and not necessarily the most lucrative - this part is actually very crowded because it is too easy

EVM is good to know for an ongoing career, but more practically building wallets, exchanges, algorithms, trade routing systems, data visualizations, ad space on a website that provides utility, ad space on a bot that shows pricing data to a chat room, a better gui that happens to take a cut of transactions when people use it —- these are all options

so many things, so much, so easy

harder to focus as the space moves at light speed

The big thing now in Blockchain is DeFi (decentralized finance). People re-invent finance on the Blockchain.

In order you need to learn: 1. Basics of web dev (mostly front, not much backend for Blockchain) 2. Ethereum & Solidity 3. DeFi programming

I run a youtube channel on DeFi and Blockchain development:

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCZM8XQjNOyG2ElPpEUtNasA

I also have courses on how to become a blockchain developer and how to build arbitrage flashloans. I recommend first following my free trainings:

http://eattheblocks.com/bootcamp

http://eattheblocks.com/flash

> And most of these tests are basically bullshit, in terms of real world impact.

Yes, that is what's so wrong about it. If the whiteboard leetcode monkeydance was somehow relevant to job performance, it'd be annoying but ok. Given the complete irrelevance, it is just a sign of a profoundly broken industry that doesn't understand what job performance is about.

It bugs me when people say "the bar is high". No, the bar isn't high, the bar is sideways and outside in the parking lot of the stadium.

Personally I have never and will never give a whiteboard algorithm trivial pursuit interview. Doing my small part to bring some sanity here (Silicon Valley). I read the resume and talk about the actual past job experience with the candidate. It works wonderfully well. Never made a bad hire.

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