I truly despise the leetcode style of interviewing. It comes off as completely lazy and ineffective for most companies, and is a terrible indicator of how talented individuals are. I've been in the field for about a decade and have been on both sides of the interview table more than I can remember. I'm at the point where if I get asked these kinds of pointless questions at a screening phase, it is a signal I probably don't even care to work for them. If they don't care enough to actually create a meaningful interview process rather than copy+pasting the dumb Silicon Valley company pointless leetcode interviewing template, then they're clearly not somewhere I want to work.

The worst experience I had was applying for a couple of large companies like Peloton and Compass. They outsourced the leetcode interviewing process to some arbitrary company in Russia. Not only did I not have the chance to ask any questions of the company, but I had to do absolutely pointless trick questions for an arbitrary third party. It was an absolute waste of time that I only did once and told the other company basically to fuck off. Seriously, if a company can't even run their own interviews what is the freaking point?? It's an absolute absurdity and I cannot believe that this practice is so common.