A pattern I've noticed in the comments is how leetcode "commoditizes" engineers. To which some counter with an argument against this idea. It's clear that companies seek engineers from all around the world to help them in their business. Because they're casting such a wide net, some kind of cheap, quick filter is required to sort out a large segment of the population.
What if the initial filter is physical proximity to the company headquarters? What if the companies look for engineers first in their surrounding areas, and provide opportunities for those even without the skills initially set on the job opportunity? My hunch is that, if a person is dedicated, he/she will work hard and acquire the necessary tasks required for the job. The surrounding communities will benefit from the gains by the business, and leetcode-like tests would be unnecessary for the majority of job postings.
Curious to hear what others think about this "local-first" approach.
I know of a F500 company that takes this approach in IT. They’re constantly understaffed, despite being a legit good place to work, with fair compensation.
People tend to leave once they’re trained - it’s pretty natural, given they’re smart, motivated engineers and the company just doesn’t need to solve very interesting tech problems.
The company does it for effectively altruistic reasons - they want to help bring tech talking to their declining city.
Software companies tend to be very scalable because they can get their customers from anywhere in the world. Unless the company was itself hyper local (which I’m sure exists but I’m struggling to think of an example) why would they handicap themselves for little benefit?
What if the initial filter is physical proximity to the company headquarters? What if the companies look for engineers first in their surrounding areas, and provide opportunities for those even without the skills initially set on the job opportunity? My hunch is that, if a person is dedicated, he/she will work hard and acquire the necessary tasks required for the job. The surrounding communities will benefit from the gains by the business, and leetcode-like tests would be unnecessary for the majority of job postings.
Curious to hear what others think about this "local-first" approach.