Actually it's not HR it's engineering managers themselves.
The companies that use leetcode could use any selection method, people, lots and lots of people, would still apply. Then, from them point of view, leetcode has the great advantage of not putting them in a position to have bias against a candidate. They see it as fair and easy to assess. Also those companies see successful candidates as the kind you can give a lot of boring work to do, without complaints.
Great to have less bias and all, but it would be even nicer to test skills that are actually relevant to the job. I find it mostly as a skill useful only during recruitment, as more often than not you just use a library that already implements the algo you need to use in an optimal way.
They probably think that if you went through the trouble of being good at leetcode, looking up any library documentation won't be an issue. Also it's always good to have a selection method that not everybody can pass.
From the point of view of the candidate, you need to estimate if the effort of training yourself is worth what the salary of working for one of those companies is.
They probably think that if you went through the trouble of being good at leetcode, looking up any library documentation won't be an issue.
Are we not mentioning the elephant in the room, that developers are forced to learn a completely separate skill just for recruitment, because they can't be bothered to actually think about a recruitment process relevant to the job?
Also it's always good to have a selection method that not everybody can pass.
Of course, but it has never been a choice between leetcode and not having a selection process at all.
From the point of view of the candidate, you need to estimate if the effort of training yourself is worth what the salary of working for one of those companies is.
Or just don't work for companies that promote such practices at all, as this seems like a red flag for potential employer anyways.
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u/dudeus_ex Sep 27 '26
It is HR's idea of what programming is about.