I haven't done many Leet Code-style interviews, but the ones I have are usually simple-ish problems I'd have no difficulty with under normal circumstances, and yet I fail them at least 50% of the time.
There are a couple of things at play here:
1. I'm regularly complimented on how sharp my mind is, but I can't reliably recruit that sharpness on-demand. If I get any kind of brain fog during a timed problem (with no opportunity for a break), it's game over.
2. Coding in an unfamiliar environment, like Coderpad.
The problems are hard enough to make them easy to fail if you can't spot a good approach immediately, but easy enough that a "good" answer gives very little signal relative to the time being dedicated to the problem. I've done interview processes where 50% of the total process is given over to these kinds of problems, and the process concluded with me feeling I didn't get any real opportunity to demonstrate my strengths.
And last but not least they are geared towards puzzles of the type encountered during CS education. Thus they are age discriminating and they are non CS discriminating.
There are a couple of things at play here:
1. I'm regularly complimented on how sharp my mind is, but I can't reliably recruit that sharpness on-demand. If I get any kind of brain fog during a timed problem (with no opportunity for a break), it's game over.
2. Coding in an unfamiliar environment, like Coderpad.
The problems are hard enough to make them easy to fail if you can't spot a good approach immediately, but easy enough that a "good" answer gives very little signal relative to the time being dedicated to the problem. I've done interview processes where 50% of the total process is given over to these kinds of problems, and the process concluded with me feeling I didn't get any real opportunity to demonstrate my strengths.