Are programming interviews draining entrepreneurial spirit?

[7.62x51]

Can you imagine preparing for months or even years for an interview?

This is the current reality many software devs are finding themselves in as they prepare for algorithmic coding interviews. It started with just the top tier tech companies but now most others are following this practice.

Regardless of whether or not this is a good system, I can't help but think about how this is likely impacting innovation.

Knowing how to solve these contrived coding problems is more valued than actually having built real products. Therefore people are spending more time learning how to prepare for an interview than in building actual skills.

This is great for anyone on the unscripted path as it means less competition for us but I'm curious if anyone else has made this observation.

 

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[alexkuzmov]

Can you imagine preparing for months or even years for an interview?

This is the current reality many software devs are finding themselves in as they prepare for algorithmic coding interviews. It started with just the top tier tech companies but now most others are following this practice.

Regardless of whether or not this is a good system, I can't help but think about how this is likely impacting innovation.

Knowing how to solve these contrived coding problems is more valued than actually having built real products. Therefore people are spending more time learning how to prepare for an interview than in building actual skills.

This is great for anyone on the unscripted path as it means less competition for us but I'm curious if anyone else has made this observation.

I`m gonna press X to doubt on this observation.
Maybe you can share some examples and company names?

 

[Deleted50669]

Can you imagine preparing for months or even years for an interview?

This is the current reality many software devs are finding themselves in as they prepare for algorithmic coding interviews. It started with just the top tier tech companies but now most others are following this practice.

Regardless of whether or not this is a good system, I can't help but think about how this is likely impacting innovation.

Knowing how to solve these contrived coding problems is more valued than actually having built real products. Therefore people are spending more time learning how to prepare for an interview than in building actual skills.

This is great for anyone on the unscripted path as it means less competition for us but I'm curious if anyone else has made this observation.

This is usually only the case when the supply of overqualified candidates far outweighs the demand (i.e., entry-level engineering roles at large tech companies, where one role might have 300 candidates that meet the baseline requirements). At the senior level that nonsense generally goes away, since the knowledge is assumed by your experience. But yea, if you have no experience, you better know your shit.

 

[Zealander]

I think this is a bit hyperbole, sure if you want to get into google or such caliber company which has hundreds of applications per position then you might need to grind on the algorithms. However it is usually not years if you have your computer science fundamentals in order.

 

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[7.62x51]

My current role is at a no-name company which had over 300 applicants.
I have a CS degree and a decent GPA but it was the nearly 500 algorithm questions I've done over the last few years which helped me get through the multiple rounds of coding challenges.

I also got offers from places with 0 algorithm questions and they paid 40% less.

So I'll have to agree to disagree.