To be honest, I’ve done quite a bit of LeetCode, and while it’s great for practicing algorithms and problem-solving, I’ve found that I rarely use these “fancy” algorithms in my actual work. Most of the time, what really matters is breaking down requirements into clear logic, writing maintainable and collaborative code, and communicating well with the team. These skills are hard to assess through algorithm-focused interviews alone. I really hope interviews can place more emphasis on practical engineering skills and real-world scenarios, which would be more valuable for both companies and candidates.

I’m currently preparing for interviews myself, so having access to high-quality, free resources like this is incredibly helpful. The AI interviewer feature, in particular, looks like it will be very useful for me. Thanks again to the author for making these resources available!

This is awesome. Just for awareness - I started going through the book a few days ago and there's a lot of other useful information outside of the LC style questions (e.g. what's actually important on a resume, how to realistically get your foot in the door with companies, etc.). Very data driven and comprehensive, so for me there's still a lot of value in the non LC parts of the book.

Incredible value here, thanks for sharing Aline. The book itself is a wonderful resource, not just for the technical chapters but the rest on resumes and reaching out etc. Even the technical portion provides the framework (boundary thinking, triggers, etc.) which is above and beyond basically any other resource online or in print. The AI interviewer is also super useful and the 'book' section of the site is very well put together. 10/10.

I wonder which other professions or trade ask people to perform infront of them in a simulated env as a filter criteria.

Actors for sure with auditions and maybe maybe chefs, male pornstars.

'Principal' developer at my last place spent 100 consecutive days grinding leetcode. Shortly after had an interview where they made him do a leetcode test live and he failed it.

The whole thing is broken.

Aline and team are doing great work. Love to see this!

Proud to have helped work on this. Happy to field any questions.

I would like to give a try, but I am getting this for India:

My name is Aline, and I'm the founder of interviewing.io. Thanks so much for your interest. It looks like you’re not in a country where we’re open for business yet, so we can’t create your account, but we’ll add you to our waitlist.

I think the reason leetcode problems are still popular is because they test whether a candidate is willing to work hard (‘grind’) on problems that don’t even matter. A lot like what actually goes on at a FAANG company.

This sounds like an amazing resource. What’s the rationale for making it all free?

LeetCode-style interviews used to be an aptitude test, kinda like the weeder courses in college. Now that most people cram for them, they've lost their original purpose.

I wish I could just submit my solution and be told if it passes instead of dealing with the AI Interviewer. A lot of problems don't have a leetcode equivalent.

How did your site know my first/last name when I gave my email address to create an account and clicked the confirmation link you sent?

Long ago, some dotcom, founded by students who'd never worked, used their own idea at the time about what software development is about (i.e., Stanford first-year CS problem sets). And since that company had a lot of money (for different reasons), a lot of wannabe companies tried to mimic whatever they did.

Today, CS student's idea of an industry interview has turned into an extortion racket cottage industry, with people not only selling ritual prep books, but now also selling mock interview rituals with techbros who got into the best-paying companies.

Youse has a lovely career potential; its would be a shame if somethings was ta happen to your job interview.

What more does it take to realize this is very time-consuming and expensive theatre, and terrible metric for hiring good software engineers.

And if you're an employer who doesn't care that students spend many hundreds of hours rehearsing for the interview theatre, to the exclusion of getting more experience building things, and that your interviews aren't actually selecting for software engineer aptitude, what happens when the hire takes that same misaligned hoops-jumping mindset to their work.

Thank you for this. Some people are critical of coding tests but I do this there is a point: namely to weed out people who can't code.

Am I the only one that interviewed people with lengthy resumes full of programming experience and when I asked them to do a simple programming exercise they fell flat on their face? I've seen experience in C, gave them take home two hour exam and they couldn't even get anything to compile. What he meant was he took a class a few years back.

You see it in other domains with extensive Excel experience and the guy gets hired and never heard of a vlookup.

I think some of the stuff is overkill but you need to select for people that know how to program.

I for one am glad they exist because I don't have a CS degree but learned on my own. I lucked into this profession through an online leetcode style screener and your book helped me immensely,so thank you

Cracking the Code Interview is a great book and excellent for practice and brushing up. But I have found leet-code questions terrible for actually interviewing candidates. A lot of them boil down to whether the candidate knows the specific trick or can regurgitate the memorized solution.

(Maybe I am just bitter because I have more than once bombed a leet-code interview myself)

I interview a lot of people and my go-to coding question is actually a pretty simple question that might be found in a 2-year coding course. What I am looking for is production ready code, good error handling, tidy design, and understandable code. All things that leet-coding specifically discourages.

Hot take: these interesting, contained problems that you really can solve on your own are a finite resource, and every time you read the solution to one you permanently deplete that resource for yourself.

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