TLDR why leetcode in private when you can work in public*
(*yes yes, not everyone can work in public, but i bet a fair amount of you can but havent given it a real shot)
It wasn’t that much or that bad, really. The setup was pretty simple, and quite doable for junior devs IMO (though full disclosure I had just left a position as a lead game programmer, so for me specifically it would have looked a little bad if I didn’t smash this particular interview question). It also helped that the problem was open-ended with extra credit features. I learned later when giving the interview myself that most people never finished the basic game, the majority never tried to write an AI player, and the interviewers were quite forgiving with their ranking & scoring - it was adaptive to the candidates. The coding part of the interview was just trying to be a bit fun and not just be pure dumb LeetCode problems. IMO it worked, I totally enjoyed the interview. The rest of the 4 hour interview included some whiteboard questions (on DB schemas, which I flubbed pretty hard) and also a lot of just talking about experiences and goals.
I think this is dismissive of their talent, relative to other people who might try doing the same.
To be fair, swyx was also being dismissive of their talent "Just work publicly and you don't have to prove your coding skills!", which of course assumes your talent will be evident to anyone glancing at your public work. In my opinion, making incredibly complex work look effortless, and therefore easy to follow, requires exceptional talent.
I believe those who are popular content creators are also better at marketing and sales. Getting their work recognized means that their marketing talent is good and not necessarily their programming skill relative to other people who are doing the same.
When looking from that perspective - are you optimizing for hiring people with good programming skills or those with good marketing skill?
You can take a traditional career path, or you can carve out a niche somewhere.
