Why are technical coding interviews so hard?

I’ve Interviewed software engineering candidates for over a decade now, and here is my take on it.

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00:00 The dreaded tech interview
01:46 Why do most people find tech interviews so hard
04:44 Why tech interviews are the way they are
09:10 Mental shift required to succeed in tech interviews
16:15 Are tech interviews fair?

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Also, all opinions are my own and not my employer's.

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[mrowlbert]

A word of caution to people who watch this video: it really only applies to a narrow band of companies. Do your research. Study and prep only as much as needed for for your selected employers. If it’s FAANG, fine, listen to Utsav. If it’s for your local web dev shop, you’ll probably waste a lot of time and leave money on the table by not applying sooner. Keep learning and keep building and good luck out there!

[AinurEru]

A major factor that is left-out of this discussion is the "opportunity cost" payed by candidates for investing months/years into specializing in dealing with this standardized process, as oppose to spending that same time/energy into far more productive and relevant directions for their career develpment overall. It is very likly to be an overall net-loss for candidates if the opportunity cost is factored in, considering that much of that investment is really only relevant for this interviewing-process itself, typically being mostly forgotton the moment they land a job. It's the exact same story with standardized testing, it is an approach that optimized much more in service of the party that needs to filter, at the expence of the party being filtered. Also once a target is being measured specifically, it often leads to overspecialization into mastering it by candidates, leading to hires of candidates that had excelle in that process "at the expense" of investing in their ability to provide high value once hired. There's a conflation between "standardization" and "objectivity": Just because a measuring process is "standardized", doesn't make it "objective". We can all "agree" on what "signal" was provided by an interview, all the while having that signal poorly correlated/indicative of a strong hire and not realizing that we're measuring the wrong thing so that "agreement" about the "measurment" is irrelevant and we're not aware of that.

[philhagerman]

It’s not that tech interviews are unfair, but you have to wonder why everyone at these Silicon Valley companies all look the same and share the same mindset of the world. The process in which they evaluate “successful” candidates is all the same so you end up getting a monoculture.

Step outside the valley or FAANG in general and interviews are nothing like this. I’ve been doing this for close to 25 years across a variety of industries and the rest of the world is nothing like this. The only ones outside Silicon Valley that follow this mindset are startups who want to believe they are the next FAANG company.

Just saying not all interviews are the Mike Tyson fight. There are an awful lot of BTS dance party interviews out there.

[armandoleon]

My problem is I tend to forget easily. When I’m not actively recalling concepts (DSA) and studying things I need for work, such as a technology within our tech stack or another to solve a problem, I forget concepts in DSA over time. And when an interview offer comes up, I panic because I haven’t been proactively studying DSA, I’ve been learning something else. I try to study one thing at a time, too. When I try to do a bunch of these things at once, I don’t honor my health and myself and I get super burnt out and my health takes a bit. I try to knock one thing out at a time, but I don’t wanna spend so much time on software engineering. I love it, but I have other interests too and I wanna spend time with family. It’s such a balancing act. I am willing to time and task manage, but I get super obsessed/stressed (more of a personal problem) when something doesn’t go to plan or something comes up and puts me behind schedule. Anyone have experience with this and have any suggestions?

[gabrielfono]

This guy is my mentor.
Being a software developer after teaching myself for two years, I am now focus on algorithms and datastructure to talke my skills to the next level

[ChocolateMilkCultLeader]

What is interesting to me is the fact that so many people are now studying for coding interviews. My articles on this have hit 150k views, AlgoExpert has had over 100k paying subs, I'm sure your videos on this have done well, Leetcode has tons you users etc etc. So it's very unlikely that people will come across problems they haven't seen before in an interview. How do you think interviews will change to reflect that? Will they just get harder? More specific questions? Behavioral? I'd be interested in your thoughts because you've actually been involved in the hiring process

[PeteGay]

The BEST explanation of technical interviews I have ever seen! Well done. Companies don't want test takers and regurgitators. They want problem solvers who know when they reach their limits and when to find assistance and reference to move past an obstacle.

[SauravKumar-vjks]

Utsav, man you don''t now how much crap you are cutting through the entire software engineering industry in general which is full of opinions and escaping strategies to get away from mastering the fundamentals and justify their just enough way of shallow learning. You're a real gem and sure I get to learn something really fascinating from you in each of your videos. Keep being the guiding light to a lot of the software engineers out there especially the new ones. Surely this channel deserves no less than a million subscribers.

[chinomsojohnson]

Almost every company uses leetcode style interviews now. I have gotten codility screens which consist of leetcode style questions for WordPress developer positions. I absolutely hated them and didnt wanna do them but I completely have no choice as they are the barrier to the kind of life I want.

[sylvesterdzimiri]

Love your channel man. You are an inspiration

[WilliamDye-willdye]

Old coder here. I have mixed feelings about tech interviews, but overall I'm still very dissatisfied with them. The bottom line is simply this: the correlation between performance in the interviews and job performance is weak. It's even weaker when you consider that the people doing the hiring and promotion fit in well with the existing system, which makes it difficult to detect a problem with the existing system.

If fairness, the process does seem to be improving, and it's a tough task in general. The best thing I've noticed about tech interviews is that it detects non-coders who somehow managed to have a good resume. So I'm not completely against tech interviews, but I also don't place a lot of value on them.

[johnathanrice]

If you really are testing the engineers for how will the handle things under pressure maybe you should re-examine why there are so many fires at your company that constantly need to be put out. Well-run company you never code under pressure because things have been well planned out and well unit tested

[jaycool]

My only problem is that it takes too long and creates burn out. Its mental gymnastics really. It shouldn't take a month to figure out if someone is a good fit and extend an offer. It shouldn't be longer than 2 weeks tops. Thats why i recommend starting off at start ups and smaller/mid sized companies before going straight for FAANG. Its best to go for faang when you already havee a job. FAANG & top tech companies, their process is very long and time consuming. It can be 1 month or 2 months. But the worst part is doing everything right or what you're supposed to do and still dont get an offer. All the blood, sweat, & tears through grueling 1-2 month long interviews and the mental gymnastics, go for nothing. That feeling creates burn out. Hear all these stories of applying to over 300 jobs before getting an offer. To me, it requires decent interview skills but the biggest factor is luck. Luck plays a huge part of the process. Be lucky you got a easy question, or a good interviewer and they liked you, or the process was smooth. But if you're getting only 1 offer out of 300 jobs you applied for, there's something wrong. To me ppl should be getting, at least these days for every 10 offers you should get at least 3. Theres something wrong w/ your resume and didnt tailor it to match keywords.

[shashankbhat]

I have been following your channel for a while now, I simply love the crisp and clear way of communication of what is most important for software engineers. Also great backgrounds, lighting, clear sound systems you have. Keep going Utsav. Would love to see your channel cross a million subscribers.

[apurbapanja]

Thank you so much for changing the way I see the TECH interview in my mind. I am new in tech and you are one of the inspirations of my tech career. lots of love.

[luistovar]

thanks for your advice, I'm a developer from México and I'm watching your videos to get used to listen English and also to know how to improve some skills required to pass an interview

[magicja]

I just ordered Computer Science Distilled, a book you recommended in a previous video. Its not every day you find YouTube content that isn't about trying to make money for ones self. I really appreciate you not fishing for likes and subs, hence why I like and subscribed to your channel.

[vulpixelful]

I agree with what you said, especially not having to work for a FAANG :) But, I still do manage to work at companies who get signals from "applied programming" interviews focused on a domain, either in the interview or a take-home. And they had/have especially talented engineers : wrote books, contributed to programming language implementations, etc). And I'm not counting myself out either, just give it a few more years :)

But, you need the fundamentals to be a "power user" (didn't want to say "rockstar") engineer so I still agree that the fundamentals are important.

[kathiravanmanimozhi]

One of the best channels to get some good advice, hands down. Utsav, would you be willing to do a paid career counseling session for an hour or so please?

[theSeniorSDE]

Loved this video, especially the mike tyson analogy. We can expect such content only from you Utsav