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> But in your coding interview, don't do leet code. Just give a regular coding problem. Not a big one, not a long one, not an especially tricky one.

This limits the signal of the skill ceiling that you can pick up from the interview. Give an easy whiteboard problem, and both a great candidate and a good candidate will be evaluated to be roughly the same. (No red flags, both solved the question)

It's a bit like hiring a plumber, by giving each prospective contractor a two question quiz: "Which way does crap flow?" [1] and "When is payday?" [2]

At that point, you are just going with a lottery system.

[1] Downhill

[2] Friday



We in general don't need great. Good is OK. We just need to avoid bad or terrible.

But we still knew when great showed up. I was one of the interviewers. I remember that the interview switched, from us asking questions to find out how much the candidate knew, to us asking questions so we could learn stuff.

Now she's a principal engineer. In her spare time, she's also my boss.




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