Xander ✺ Spectral Codex

I used to refuse to do Leetcode interviews out of principle. I thought they were stupid, and I'd rather build. In hindsight I left a lot of money on the table by being so principled, but I never struggled to find work. I even took a year and a half off once to travel the world, and when I decided to get back to work it only took me 3 weeks to secure a remote job that allowed me to stay abroad in Asia (this was before COVID when remote was still uncommon) Then in '24 it was clear to me that the market was no longer what it used to be, and was only going to get worse (don't forget at the time everyone was claiming this is all temporary). I swallowed my pride, moved to SF, and grinded my Leetcode like a good little monkey. 500 questions later I secured an offer at Meta. I felt like I'd slid into the garage just before the door shut. Now in '26 coding has been automated, but most companies still do coding interviews. Never before have coding interviews been more removed from reality, and I've personally lost all motivation to prep for them. Many if not most companies will probably inevitably phase them out within the next year or two, but then the question becomes - what will they replace them with? If companies are replacing them with AI-enabled HackerRank/CodeSignal interviews, I wouldn't consider that an improvement based on those interviews I've seen. IMO all interviewing is flawed. At the end of the day, most people just want smart, hardworking people that are fun to work with and aligned with the mission. Of course there needs to be alignment in skillset, but I think AI is the great democratizer that makes that less relevant than ever. If I were running my own company, I'd just find those people and give them work trials. All this monkey hoop jumping does nobody any favors, and is frankly demeaning. It's always been that way and we've all known it, but now it's finally gotten so absurd that the tide is finally shifting.