> We don't realize something important - Leetcode is a competitive programming platform at its core, not an interview platform. Yet, we fall into the trap of thinking it's an educational website.<p>There is a word circling China's Internet call "内卷", which can be translated directly to Involution, but on the ground it actually means "Over competition" or "Doing zero-sum competition". People trying to climb over the others while preventing others from climb over them, so they created many arbitrary obstacles to block others.<p>Keep in mind that, in Chinese society, 35 years old is equals to 70 years old (In many places, you cannot even get a gov job if you are over 35). Failing a competition can be really, life-changingly costly.<p>So, it is rather a "standard practice" for Chinese companies to keep throwing LeetCode questions to the interviewee during a job interview (, after all, many of those questions are marked by LeetCode as "Interview Questions"). This method creates a lot of benefits for the interviewer not only for the interview, but also for later negotiations.<p>Funny thing is, even though the top dogs in China got the best talented engineers in the entire nation, their public-facing products are still nothing but trash (or even fruaddy). And as for those engineers, many of them has their own big dreams, but they cannot realize it because the market is a highly restricted blood sea.