Such interviews are made to legally discriminate against old developers.
A freshly graduate student has more chance to still know this or that algorithm, and prepare for that.
An old/experienced developer has dealt with plenty of real world complex problems. So much that his attention is absorbed by them, not by what is the best way to search for an element in a tree.
I know what you're saying but I don't think there is any kind of nefarious backroom discussion that goes on to this purpose.
I think more likely though are the accidental favoritism in the industry where engineers submit resumes of other engineers they know who are looking for a job who, surprise, are also white males.
I don't believe it is either racist or sexist however. It's just "who people know". Nonetheless, you're going to build a hive-minded team if you don't go out of your way to break these patterns.
Perhaps similarly leetcode interviews come about from engineers who were leetcode interviewed. Again, no need to jump to ageism as the cause.
(And if anything I think it may have turned a corner where the older devs may have more experience with interesting algorithms that, I don't know, might not be taught any longer in CS?)
The whole point of being an “experienced developer” is that you know more than the new grad. What kind of experienced developer forgets basic computer science on top of which all else is built?
The older you are, the more you realize leetcode is like 0.0000001% of what anyone does at an actual software engineering job, and you optimize to ignore that bullshit entirely.
There are exceptions, of course. But for a very large majority of software engineering jobs leetcode is completely useless.
But the older you are, the more likely it is that you have built a family and have children and responsibilities outside of work. You cannot necessarily afford to spend time studying (problems untied to the real world) as much as someone younger I guess.
I don't think its strictly a time issue, its an energy/motivation issue.
40 minutes of practice a day for a month or two should be sufficient for someone to solve/go over dozens of Leetcode questions. We all, literally all, have that time to spare otherwise we wouldn't touch our phones or ever watch T.V and yet most of us do.
But I don't disagree with you completely. I think the older you get, the more mental resistance you have to do the grind to become good at Leetcode. It just sucks that after 13 years of programming and accomplishing quite a few things I have to do this shit all over again just to get another job that's pretty much the same as I'm doing now - and this knowing that it sucks so bad - that you are reduced to a Leetcode monkey with all your experience, is quite a tough pill to swallow at 40.
I am also a bit less inclined to look for a new job in general - I have a kid, have a comfortable job with stable income (well, relatively speaking its stable) etc etc. Sure I can go try chasing FAANG salaries but the reality is for me its psychologically much more comfortable to stay where I am and it may also be sensible when calculating the risk in moving jobs.
Yea, the older I get, the less willing I am to jump through hoops, supplicate and prostrate myself in front of a company I want to work for. At 22 years old, I would have thought nothing of studying 2 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 4 weeks to get a job. Now, no way. And I believe this is a common trait among employees my age.
So if a company designs an interview process that involves all this hoop jumping and whiteboard hazing, they are deliberately adding bias against older, more experienced candidates.
> So if a company designs an interview process that involves all this hoop jumping and whiteboard hazing, they are deliberately adding bias against older, more experienced candidates.
I agree about the bias though I don't think its deliberate. I think its just the easiest way for them to filter through masses of candidates.
A freshly graduate student has more chance to still know this or that algorithm, and prepare for that.
An old/experienced developer has dealt with plenty of real world complex problems. So much that his attention is absorbed by them, not by what is the best way to search for an element in a tree.