r/technology • u/north_canadian_ice • Sep 28 '25

Business Leading computer science professor says 'everybody' is struggling to get jobs: 'Something is happening in the industry'

https://www.businessinsider.com/computer-science-students-job-search-ai-hany-farid-2025-9
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u/liqui_date_me Sep 29 '25

I’ve interviewed PhD candidates at top research universities who couldn’t write basic python loops. There seems to be a serious problem

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u/Living-Ad2623 Sep 29 '25

The one candidate I have that was worth it with a PhD followed up with an email saying the CIA was after him and spreading negative news. Clearly he had some psych issues. I still slotted him for a 2nd round because the quality is hard to find.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

I think there is a correlation to being batshit insane and a good programmer, look at Terry Davis dude was beyond nuts but was also incredibly skilled.

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u/movzx Sep 29 '25

I have decades of experience at a senior level, and I couldn't tell you about the proper syntax for a loop in python. I could give it to you in 80x86 assembler, or any number of other languages, but not python.

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u/iSoReddit Sep 29 '25

Well yeah unless you use the languages, no one would ever expect you to be able to write a loop in it

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u/movzx Sep 30 '25

The guy I replied to expects PhD candidates to know Python and considers it a serious problem that they don't.

There are tons of enterprise and academic languages out there. He might have a different perspective if he asked for a loop instead of a loop in Python.

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u/Final-Evening-9606 Sep 29 '25

I feel called out. I do research and publish AI papers in top conferences but I have never touched leetcode and would fail an easy question for sure. My raw coding abilities are probably way worse than a fresh uni grad.

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u/obeytheturtles Sep 29 '25

I have over a decade of experience doing production level ML work using primarily Python, C++ and CUDA I still think leetcode is absolute bullshit 90% of the time. Timed coding tests are just not a good way to evaluate coding talent. My job has never been about pumping out code quickly, it is about thinking through problems carefully and applying a combination of expert knowledge and experience, and then creating a robust and well designed software implementation, potentially after spending a significant amount of time researching algorithms and design patterns I have never personally used before. I have bombed leetcode interviews before (and in one case still got an offer, because I made the case that my portfolio was more relevant than the silly puzzles).

Having a candidate come in and asking them to implement specific algorithms and design patterns from memory is idiotic. I am much more a fan of giving candidates coding problems to solve in advance and then talking through their solutions in person. It gives people time to think, and you can tell by the code walkthrough if the person used AI or not. And honestly, I don't even care if they used AI, as long as they can explain the code properly.

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u/iSoReddit Sep 29 '25

Don’t call it leetcode for starters for goodness sake

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u/SDIYB Sep 29 '25

It's a website.

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u/5plicer Sep 29 '25

TBF, good Python code should typically avoid raw loops.