In my experience, algorithmic interviews work great for people that
A) Are deeply interested in the topic. If you dabble in competitive programming, then these interviews should be a breeze.
B) Young people out of college, with a fresh memory of data structures and algorithms classes.
C) High IQ individuals. This one might be controversial, but I've met plenty of people that were just intellectually sharp enough to deduce the solutions, without having touched the material in 10 year, nor have been "grinding" LeetCode. But even these folks might not get through, if they haven't practiced - as you also have to solve the problems quick enough.
D) Those that are willing to grind LeetCode for months and months, and dedicate all their time to such prep.
One common trait has also been the ability to work under pressure / stress. If you're a good test-taker, you have an advantage. If tests make you anxious, that could be enough to derail your performance.
I don't remember which company that did the internal study, but they found that women fared worse at whiteboard interviews due to higher rates of anxiety and lower self-confidence, compared to guys - even though they were equals as far as technical knowledge and work performance goes.
You forgot first and foremost that a percentage of people just show up with the right answer. This has always bothered me about "brain teasers". Just testing for "have I seen this before".
I once had an interview for an internal transfer where the problem they gave me was one that we’d spent 6 years worth of senior staff engineers solving. Not sure I got to the same answer they did in my allotted 30min.
A) Are deeply interested in the topic. If you dabble in competitive programming, then these interviews should be a breeze.
B) Young people out of college, with a fresh memory of data structures and algorithms classes.
C) High IQ individuals. This one might be controversial, but I've met plenty of people that were just intellectually sharp enough to deduce the solutions, without having touched the material in 10 year, nor have been "grinding" LeetCode. But even these folks might not get through, if they haven't practiced - as you also have to solve the problems quick enough.
D) Those that are willing to grind LeetCode for months and months, and dedicate all their time to such prep.
One common trait has also been the ability to work under pressure / stress. If you're a good test-taker, you have an advantage. If tests make you anxious, that could be enough to derail your performance.
I don't remember which company that did the internal study, but they found that women fared worse at whiteboard interviews due to higher rates of anxiety and lower self-confidence, compared to guys - even though they were equals as far as technical knowledge and work performance goes.