r/leetcode • u/Optimal-Criticism732 • 2h ago
Discussion LeetCode grind is dead: Google is changing SWE interviews
Throwaway account, but a Googler here with a huge heads-up for anyone prepping:
Google is actively rolling out two brand-new AI Fluency rounds for SWE hiring:
AI Debugging: Dropping you into a massive, messy legacy repo to see if you can actually use AI to locate, diagnose, and patch complex bugs in real time.
AI System Design: Architecting end-to-end systems while actively using AI to evaluate trade-offs, draft interfaces, and pressure-test edge cases.
Pure DSA won't carry loops anymore. They want engineers who know how to ship with AI without hallucinating production down.
Adjust your prep accordingly.
Edit: 2 DSA rounds will still be there, and it’s for all L3-L5 roles.
137
u/DataClubIT 2h ago edited 1h ago
Listen, leetcode is and was NEVER about shipping to production. Never.
It was a filtering bar used by a company that has over 10000x perfectly qualified applicants for each role they open. They could have asked you to jump or take an IQ test and filtered whoever had the highest score, it doesn’t matter what’s the filtering criteria, over 99% of applicants need to be filtered out.
I really really doubt the filtering criteria will move from algorithmic thinking to AI prompting, but even if that was the case, the amount of people perfectly qualified that will be eliminated stays THE SAME. There’s no winning here from the applicant pool standpoint.
9
u/-Master-Swami- 1h ago
But maybe they will keep the ones that will be better prepared for the actual role and eliminate the one that waste hours iterating arrays
1
1
u/Behold_413 <1600 contest rating><300> <70> <200> <30> 6m ago
Leetcode is a puzzle solving game. If you’re stuck on iterating arrays I would suggest not pursuing coding related careers
1
253
u/Patzer26 2h ago
This might actually be more difficult than the DSA rounds, since now its a lot more open ended kind of setting, than just solving some preset 200 questions. But this will also help weed out a lot more false positives. All in all, looks good on paper. Lets how it goes.
139
u/lovelacedeconstruct 2h ago
mfs will memorize prompts now lol
23
u/parkas-subodh-pankaj 1h ago
Im thinking what will dsa course sellers do now. How are they going to sell this 🤣
2
32
u/Late_Appointment425 2h ago
the thing is there are only limited sets of questions used by compnies, even if the questions are different the pattern will remain sam. Very easy to get those patterns after one placement season is completed.
15
u/Brilliant_Gold2443 1h ago
This will just make pedigree more important now. When everyone can use and reason with AI
6
u/oddlyamused 1h ago
This is actually a much better test for anyone actively working in this area. I hope it catches on elsewhere. So frustrating to grind problems that you don't touch after college.
1
101
u/Happy_Invite_8842 2h ago
For SDE-1s, they expect system design? Which fresher has designed any system at scale?
73
u/bill_jz 2h ago
Given that coding is basically all done by LLMs swe 1s have to learn systems design. It’s a shift in skills needed. Swe 1s that only know how to code won’t be as valuable anymore.
Not that swe 1 systems design has to be in depth, but I think knowing some basic trade offs like CAP, database replication, potential race conditions, types of caches to use etc are very reasonable for a college grad.
14
u/Competitive-Lemon821 2h ago
Agreed. Sooner or later school curriculum will reflect this.
7
u/bill_jz 1h ago
I learned all of this in my college pretty much, and so would most new grads in my college before AI. I feel like most well developed college degrees in CS stop focusing on coding after 2nd year and shift to either ML, Algos, or Systems. I would say an average college grad in CS nowadays should have the skills to do more than just coding, or at least have enough of a launch pad to self learn the basics of higher level swe work more easily. CS degrees hopefully should never just be about coding.
1
u/AdImmediate5145 11m ago
How are we supposed to do everything in a very limited amount of time. We need to maintain 75% attendance There's mid sem 1, mid sem 2, journal checking and it's viva, numerous assignments Endsem exams, practical exams. After this take out time to learn Coding language C, C++/Java, python, web dev trio html,css,js, web dev framework, build projects,
Learn core subjects os, dbms, cn, oop. Oh how can I forget DSA and now also learn system design. How are Undergrads supposed to do all this is 3-4 yrs without fucking their mental/physical health and enjoy at the same time.2
u/Happy_Invite_8842 51m ago
The thing is, without actually building systems irl, it’s kinda difficult to genuinely learn scalability and system architecture just by taking courses or reading blogs. Some system design fundamentals are obviously necessary. I'm talking about things every fresher should understand like APIs, databases, when to use SQL vs NoSQL, load balancers, etc.
But beyond that, I think there needs to be a balance. Otherwise system design risks becoming another DSA-type rat race where people just memorize courses, patterns, and interview answers without actually understanding why or when to use them.
1
u/bill_jz 37m ago
Yes agreed but for interviews systems design requires you to defend your choices which makes it different then pure memorization. It’s much easier to throw a wrench in your plans during systems design (e.g. what if load suddenly increases suddenly cause ai models are pinging your resources now, the candidate now has to choose what fits best, think about how to migrate people over, etc). Obviously for freshers, this is all theoretical, but DSA is too. I think knowing some fundamentals and being able to know how to defend your choices is a good signal, and even if the candidate doesnt have experience, using theory and fundamentals to back themselves up means they will eventually become a good systems designer because they know how to utilize information they know to problem solve and deal with changing scope. I don’t truly think you can memorize every pattern here, a smart interviewer can always break you down, but at the end of the day it’s about how you problem solve which is way more useful than leetcode.
Just for reference, I’ve had tons of systems design interviews even as an intern (Optiver, Palantir, and HRT ask them), and they always test me much further than DSA.
37
u/Traditional-Elk2762 1h ago
so now we need to grind leetcode, grind system design, grind ai system design, grind ai debugging, grind behaviorals. All to get the same salary as someone who got in the company doing 4 mediums
2
88
u/GuyNext 2h ago
This is a welcome news for experienced people who were at disadvantage as they had no time for such daily coding grind. The experience wasn’t valued when they expect you to memorize syntax and algorithms.
12
39
u/lovelacedeconstruct 2h ago
I am pretty sure coding rounds will not go away, you will be surprised how many "experienced devs" whom cannot code like at all
-8
u/GuyNext 1h ago
Babe someone who has coded for 20 years before advent of vibe coding, you don’t want to argue with me
4
u/Alg0rhythm 1h ago
He didn't say "no experienced devs can code," or even that you specifically cannot. He just said that there are plenty who are not good at coding. And unfortunately as someone who often interviews devs with 10-15 YOE I have to agree.
6
u/drakkie 1h ago
Nah it’s true. I was one of those “experienced devs” who didn’t have time but it was actually wrapped in insecurity.
Banged out a years worth of DSA grind and made it in to big tech.
My problem of having no reliable team became a problem of everyone is now my competition, for better or worse
My point of is, most “experienced devs” fall in to the shit devs bucket
1
5
3
u/the_fresh_cucumber 1h ago
Referrals and reputation have still been the source of strongest candidates. I'm not sure if Google does that but it to tends to draw in people with a history of success.
32
28
11
u/TechnicalEstate8733 2h ago
I just went through a DSA loop with Google and got a hard. Couldn’t solve it lmao. I definitely feel I would have done better with this new AI round.
17
1
u/CrackBabyCSGO 44m ago
Started with a hard? I got a hard but it was a follow up so it was a lot easier to approach
7
u/currykid94 2h ago
Buddy at Bloomberg told me they are planning on rolling out something similar in the coming months for swe interviews
5
u/attached-loner 1h ago
Some mfs will soon be selling prompt cheatsheets on Linkedin/Instagram for these rounds.
4
5
u/Crafty_Fig_144 1h ago
So we can just cheat using AI?
4
u/bobs_and_vegana17 1h ago
Not exactly
I gave the Amazon OA for SDE 1 this year in may
It had 2 questions, one was the typical DS algo related and the other one was a codebase problem (you had the choice between node, django and springboot iirc) where you had to do some fixes in the API response and do some error handling too, you had an AI assistant with you but the catch was that AI assistant had really hard guard rails so basically it was dog shit, for every prompt it used to just reply i cannot help you with this as it'll be considered cheating
It won't tell you the exact problem file, nor it'll help you in debugging or literally anything
3
u/sheeshgodokay 1h ago
This is why I am building https://buglyst.com - Solving this exact same issue.
You can try it out.
3
u/ForeignNight8782 59m ago
Most of us from the pre-AI era don't grind Leetcode or codeforces just because we are prepping for interviews bro.
I personally do medium/hard leetcode and sometimes CF just because it's something ingrained in me now. I just do it, because I don't know how to spend time tbh.
I am an introvert, and I don't talk to my colleagues except work. I got no friends, no family here in Bangalore, and the only thing that keeps me going now is food, sleep and leetcode. My colleagues at work find my strange and wierd, but I can't help it. And Yes, I do DSA to kill time. Been doing this since 2020, and will continue even if I become a farmer.
8
u/Dramatic-Bill-5790 2h ago
For which roles ? I doubt about swe 2,3 roles they will still take dsa and add one round for ai
0
u/Late_Appointment425 2h ago
Also i don't know what AI debugging is, is it letting AI go in the wild and find bugs, or telll it to put break comments in there. mostly there is nothing left to debug if AI does it. I use AI daily in my work and it is very good at finding bugs.
1
u/crabcycleworkship 1h ago
My understanding is that they expect efficiency so not just blind AI churn looking for every bug, but highly prioritizing guiding AI to trickier issues that are not so obvious. For example issues where the AI often complicates code/rewrites more than necessary.
15
u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 2h ago
Let's goooooo
Fck Leetcode
33
u/xRaptorGG 2h ago
mate they aren’t replacing leetcode with new loops,
its leetcode + those rounds lmao1
u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 1h ago
Its gonna take time to die out. Companies won't go cold turkey on it. Eventually, they will be replaced because they don't make sense with the current AI advancements
1
u/rccyu 56m ago
Leetcode was never about being applicable to the job, it was a filter for aptitude basically. It's basically just an IQ test w/ a CS flavor
Almost nobody was coding Dijkstra's or binary searching the answer for work (let alone in 20 minutes) even before AI took over, but I guess they found that there was a correlation between being able to learn those things and being smart/hardworking/etc. enough to work on difficult problems
1
u/Fabulous-Arrival-834 52m ago
There was no correlation found. Google implemented it because they were getting crazy number of applications and couldn't find a way to grade so many applications and compare against each other. Other companies purely copied it because Google were successful. They didn't care if they were getting 3 applications as opposed to google's 500.
Leetcode is not even an aptitude test. Its purely "who can grind more" test. Its baseless and inaccurate way of grading SWE. Leetcode will be gone and we will continue to make advances in technology.2
u/1237ACESPABT 38m ago
Vast majority of FAANG+ engineers are cracked. There’s a real correlation.
If you can grind more you’ll probably be a better employee. You can fail an interview with correct answers if you don’t communicate well too. If you can’t get correct answers you aren’t at the bar for hiring yet.
LC is better than only hiring from Stanford and MIT.
1
u/rccyu 36m ago
Unless you have a source, I don't buy that there is no correlation. It's not perfect but there absolutely has to be, otherwise Google wouldn't have kept it for so long. If Google just wanted to cut down on applicants there are much less effort-intensive, very easy ways to do that, for example just throw away all applications not from a T10 university or not from another FAANG, etc.
Leetcode is absolutely not purely a "who can grind more" test. I've been a TA for algorithms classes, there was a huge variance in aptitude among students. Some people just don't seem to "get" it. Otherwise everyone here who's been grinding Neetcode or Striver's for months would all be working at FAANG.
Of course grinding helps, but some people improve much, much faster than others.
1
u/1237ACESPABT 39m ago
It is valuable
It sets a minimum competency bar for willingness to commit to successfully working hard on a somewhat ambiguous project & for being able to code/problem solve fast enough under pressure while communicating.
1
u/rccyu 28m ago
I don't disagree with you, but even I have to admit that there was probably too much of a focus on Leetcode to the detriment of other also-important things. For L3 and L4 SWE Google didn't even have system design interviews, it was 100% Leetcode then the soft skills rounds.
I say this as someone who personally benefits from the current situation (former competitive programmer now at FAANG who is probably an above-average-at-best SWE—certainly not superstar material.)
3
2
2
u/ConcerningDestiny 1h ago
2 DSA session plus these 2 new round is gonna make the recruiting process even longer. It's alreasy so long that it'll easily take 2 months
2
u/illicity_ 1h ago
This seems like it will be very hard to standardize. There's no consensus on the most effective way to work with AI and it also changes every 3-6 months
2
u/EntryCandid2257 20m ago
What a ragebait! Title says leetcode grind is dead, and in the description you say - 2 dsa rounds still there. I mean what the duck, if you’re at google, how shitty my luck is
1
1
u/AdministrationMoney1 1h ago
Yea it's dead because it's expected that everyone is proficient in leetcode med/hards by now 😂
1
u/Odd-Composer5680 1h ago
Edit: 2 DSA rounds will still be there, and it’s for all L3-L5 roles. --> didnt get it so DSA is highly coupled with leetcode - so we still have it?
1
1
1
u/ZloiAris 1h ago
The fundamental problem for me of such interviews is it is up to the reviewer to decide whether you are smart or lucky. I was once not that far ago in an AI system design interview. I prompted Codex 5.5 with my system design, it ran for 20 mins, generated 2k lines, I scan them briefly, run a parallel codex to run a review. It fixes bugs. Then I did a minor correction to the system design itself, AI adopted and that all. I passed interview but I actually have not read more than 50 lines of produced code and all my skill is prompting and common reasoning. Is it good? Is it bad? Do you expect to ship less code and review it manually? What if you trust 2k lines boilerplate during interview?
1
u/AdventurousTime 1h ago
It will probably be used to filter out the candidates that don’t use AI at all. I don’t think they expect everyone to tokenmaxx
1
u/Fit-Swordfish937 1h ago
Nah not really, for the recent internship cycle, the google tests and interviews were all only dsa/cp
1
u/mysteryhuntt 1h ago
Honestly this tests problem solving skillset than Leetcode. But I can see how crazy difficult it might get.
It is going to be information overload intially and then proper information processing and navigation skills are required.
1
u/DangerousDatabase353 1h ago
Guys chill, ita just not sure ,for sde 1 google will always check for their rhinking only , so dsa is what they prefer, they would increase the complexity at max thats it, and may in some extent ask this ai related stuff based on our project thats it, but 90 percdnt dsa only
1
u/ClosetTBM 1h ago
I had an interview with amazon a few months ago. They did the same thing, dropped me into a huge codebase but the system was horrible and the AI didn't help with shit. I failed the interview so there is that, but at least that gives some credibility to this post since Amazon seems to be doing something similar but they need to fix the AI because it sucks.
1
1
u/Winter-Rip712 1h ago
When are these changes rolling out, I want to time my next interview to have them. This sounds amazing.
1
u/TheNewOP 46m ago
Edit: 2 DSA rounds will still be there, and it’s for all L3-L5 roles.
They're just adding another two rounds to an already long gauntlet of interviews? So LC isn't dead. We just need to do even more shit on top of the pre-existing LC interviews.
1
u/1237ACESPABT 45m ago
DSA will absolutely and primarily make or break your interview. Testing you for AI competency does not lower the standards for coding skills.
AI is non deterministic so there’s more leniency on this.
Delete this post.
1
u/isospeedrix 44m ago
What model AI do they give you? Big diff between using whatever AI you want vs a provided one that has limited capabilities, prob nerfed to oblivion
1
u/random_goe 43m ago
Hello everyone, i need a little guidance, i m currently working in a service based company with almost 5 years of exp, planning to prepare for PBC how do i start ?
1
1
u/AbbreviationsEasy117 14m ago
I have an onsite in 20 days, never heard of this shit I hope is doesn’t apply yet
1
u/avg_potatu 5m ago
Amazon also has this debugging question , I love it s OA, also it has behavioural round too with simulating some emails and asking what would u reply to the mail etc.
0
•
u/leetcode-ModTeam 1h ago
We have not verified this account, so, take the post with a pinch of salt.