[HN Gopher] The Leader of the LeetCode Rebellion: An Interview w...
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The Leader of the LeetCode Rebellion: An Interview with Roy Lee
Author : distalx
Score : 60 points
Date : 2025-03-27 20:34 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thepennpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thepennpost.com)
| hahaxdxd123 wrote:
| IDK if this guy is the leader - these interview cheating tools
| have been around for at least a year at this point and some have
| been VC funded.
| LZ_Khan wrote:
| I feel like covid started the remote work revolution and AI
| cheating is about to end it.
|
| Or at least bring back on-site interviews.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| On-site interviews are pretty clearly the antidote to this, but
| that costs money this quarter. In contrast, the cost of hiring
| a total fraud cannot be pinpointed to any one metric or line
| item.
| roxolotl wrote:
| Good interviews are the antidote to this. Outside of certain
| fields ability to do leet code puzzles does not correlate
| with job performance. An interview where you do some
| realistic work is the direction we should be moving. Build
| some small functionality that's similar to what the company
| you're interviewing for does. Let them use tools they enjoy,
| ai or not. If they fly through it expand the tasks. Talk
| about why the code they, or an ai wrote works. The tradeoffs
| in their designs. I've given hundreds of interviews without
| asking a single leet code style question and not regretted
| it.
| mountainriver wrote:
| I'm not sure why it matters, just give people problems to
| solve and let them use whatever tools are available
| bena wrote:
| I really feel like this guy is paying for placement and articles
| about himself.
|
| Just today, I've seen a twitter thread and this post. Searching
| for him also shows a Gizmodo article from today.
|
| And it really seems to be a case of trying to stir controversy
| for engagement.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43497652 - And his own
| LinkedIn write up about it.
| distalx wrote:
| Yep, using the tool in secret broke the interview spirit for
| sure. And now it's just a way to promote his software, it
| seems.
| cjaybo wrote:
| This guy must have some strong connections to get this sort of
| coverage out of an AI wrapper + a few gimmicky twitter posts
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Does it take strong connections to end up in a student
| newspaper?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| No, but he also ended up on Fireship, and he also shared his
| company has done 160K+ in sales in the past 4 weeks.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| He went to Columbia and he seems kinda unhinged. The former is
| really all you need.
|
| It's a small club, and the rest of us aren't in it.
| volkk wrote:
| he's a zfellows guy. the whole thing is likely some kind of
| plant/stunt
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I mean he has admitted as much.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| He parlayed his AI wrapper into fooling Amazon into a prized
| job offer by gaming an unpopular algorithmic interview
| technique.
|
| It isn't that he made AI wrapper, it's that he pointed out the
| king has no clothes with it.
| yongjik wrote:
| "If I cheat I can get high score" does not mean the king has
| no clothes.
| hiatus wrote:
| Is it cheating if you use the same tools to solve a problem
| as you would in a job? "No calculators" is lame when the
| job entails using calculators.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yes I think it is.
|
| Math, which is more than arithmetic, is still important
| in the age of calculators.
|
| Using a tool does not substitute for clear thinking and
| deep experience, which is what they're trying to test
| for.
| bredren wrote:
| Leet code interviews are passed by having invested time
| practicing at leetcode interviews.
|
| They may but do not necessarily test for clear thinking
| and deep experience.
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| The end result of all this, they go back to in person
| interviews, at least for a "final" round.
|
| Or some alternative, there is some trusted third party
| monitoring the candidate.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| My hero
| ajcp wrote:
| I really want to be on this guys side, and when I read (or hear)
| interviews with him he comes off as thoughtful, introspective,
| and clear-eyed, while the reactions to him seem obviously out-
| sized, misguided, and frankly childish. I'm always left thinking:
| hell yeah dude, burn it down.
|
| ...but then I see the actual stuff he posts on X, his YouTube
| video, his overall "informal content", and it's blatantly
| antagonistic, performative, and basically edge-lord bs. I just
| can't help but think: this guy just needs to get bodied.
|
| So while I agree with his "crusade", I also can't help but not
| trust a thing he says, and have to assume every justification he
| gives is made up after the fact. Am I off target here?
| shuckles wrote:
| Some people need to realize we live in a society and society
| mostly functions by having people do the right thing when
| defecting is easier and more convenient. This person is one of
| them.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| What makes these tactics the "right thing"? I as a
| prospective employee don't get to quiz the interviewer using
| the same tactics? I can ask questions, but how I do know
| they're knowledgeable and that I want to work for them? Or
| should I be thankful they're even talking to me? I think it's
| a terrible practice and that we can do better.
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| They have money / job to offer. You (presumably) do not.
| And generally, you are the one applying. So the power
| dynamic is mostly in the companies favor.
|
| If you are so good and have options that you can turn down
| companies, just tell the company you refuse to do leetcode
| style, and see what happens.
|
| For really good people, yes the tables can and do turn.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| I don't understand why he (or anyone) thinks it's OK to say,
| cheat in an algorithmic interview, but that if you were somehow
| able to have an LLM secretly feed you optimal answers for any
| other part of the interview it's "wrong".
|
| Why is it not OK to cheat on a system design interview? Why is it
| not OK to completely make up a story to make you look amazing
| when they ask about your background?
|
| In the article he thinks companies should review past work and
| ask interviewees about that instead, but what would he say if
| there was an app for cheating that way?
| hinkley wrote:
| Robin Hood is a thief and an anarchist. Why do we care about
| the story? It's not what he stole, it's who he stole from and
| why.
| distalx wrote:
| Exactly! Using the tool secretly totally misses the point of
| the interview. And now it's like, _Hey look at my cheat tool!_
| Feels more like a sales pitch than anything else.
| mellosouls wrote:
| I don't know what to make of this guy, I've seen him on X for a
| while; at first I just thought he was an obnoxious student and a
| crazy bridge-burner who was going to quickly regret his
| escapades.
|
| I didn't follow him then but he kept coming up in my feed and
| there was something about his focus and message that seemed as
| amusing and sincere as it was egotistical and immature.
|
| Now I'm still not convinced of his angelic qualities but more
| sympathetic to his mission and at least a little of his
| showboating seems courageous.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Thiel Fellowship incoming.
| hahaxdxd123 wrote:
| He already got $5.5m in funding
| scudsworth wrote:
| must say i wasnt impressed with the interview coder code nor its
| organization. skimmed another of his repos and it was basically a
| minimal chat app wrapping a dozen-ish prompts along the lines of
| "you are the user's horny anime wife. chat horny style to them.
| but not tooo horny."
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| middle finger army...
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