Comment by erikerikson
18 hours ago
I think this is one of the more true answers but can you be more specific?
Like in race? Like in wealth? Like in defection willingness? Like in corruption?
Asking for a friend who is regularly identified as among the most skilled but feels their career has been significantly derailed by this social phenomenon.
People decide what is like. I know some people who would never work with some group, but they have no problem with some other group.
In this case the group is people good at leetcode - the people I know of in that group are perfectly fine with any race so long as they can solve leetcode. There are people who care about race, but I've never had much to do with them so I can't guess how they think.
Like in 'can solve a leetcode question quickly', because that's what the interview rubric asks them to test for.
That is the acceptable public answer of course but it is a mind stopper. Obviously the definition comes from some person with some set of motivations and this seems to ignore that real and pertinent question.
Things like age, class, education and educational institution, willingness to work long hours doing something you hate for a goal you don't care about except that it feeds and houses you.
Line engineers running interviews have stopped having any say in the corporate policies of tech firms years ago. They are cogs, not rockstars.
You are right, this definition does come from some person with some set of motivations, but that person is some mid/high-level manager who probably hasn't ever written a line of code in their life.
It's just tradition for the sake of tradition. When cargo cult practice becomes industry culture. Like a much milder version of why medical residents are put through extreme sleepless wringers just because William Halsted was a cocaine addict.