Sorry we made you grind LeetCode
HackerRank CEO Vivek Ravisankar acknowledges that the company's past focus on algorithmic 'LeetCode' style interviews failed to accurately assess software engineering skills. The company is shifting its hiring platform to 'Chakra,' an AI-driven tool that evaluates how candidates use AI agents to solve real-world coding problems.
Why it matters
This marks a significant shift in the tech industry's approach to hiring, moving away from rote memorization toward evaluating practical, AI-assisted development skills.
I’m Vivek, co-founder/ceo of HackerRank. We’re sorry we made you grind leetcode. That line is on billboards around SF now.
HackerRank didn’t invent algorithmic interviews, but we helped normalize a version of technical hiring that turned into months of grinding questions with little connection to the actual job.
Technical interviews have come a long way: from “How many golf balls fit in a 747?” to reading code over the phone, writing it on a whiteboard, and eventually solving LeetCode-style problems.
Each step got us a little closer to the work. But we were still mostly evaluating how well someone had prepared for an interview, not how well they could build software.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in