My hypothesis about coinbase and companies like them is that their hiring process is bad. Like they arent hiring the talent they think they are, and the higher ups have no clue what theyre doing when hiring talent. Leetcode interviews bring memorizers and career strivers in the door, not innovators. Facebook is famous for not creating any new products, and copying literally everything. Theyre also famous for a SWE interview process that emphasizes literal memorization of algorithms. Ofcourse tightening monetary policy has had a huge effect, but where are the innovative products from coinbase? What are they doing with all those people?
I argue that a company like Amazon, that actually focusses on behavioral questions brings in far better job candidates.
What exactly should Coinbase innovate on? Being a cryptocurrency exchange that is respectable and reliable would make money in the space. Instead they are trying to do multiple products poorly.
Leetcode interviewees can execute plans well. You don’t need as many innovators as people to execute some vision. What I see is that people aren’t using the platform as much.
Cutting the fat and focusing on their core business would be better.
It's literally a brand new space with a million new companies sprung up, the number of things they could work on is massive. All they have is massive fees on crypto trading. They have a ton of mediocre projects, an NFT marketplace, and thats it. You tell me why they're hiring devs at 500k a year that can implement a perfect topological sort in ten minutes.
Have you interviewed there? The process is literally the opposite of what you’re describing.
For frontend roles they test knowledge of frontend APIs and low level reasoning & decision making. They definitely have the least Leetcode style interview I’ve ever encountered.
Crypto companies are hungry (desperate even) for genuine talent, but they only have the pool of people who either believe in crypto or are willing to pretend for a big paycheck. The former are by definition a bit inexperienced / naive, and the latter aren’t passionate just greedy.
I’ve considered being one of the latter but have concerns it will ruin my resume. Also doubt I could stomach lying for money for long.
I argue that a company like Amazon, that actually focusses on behavioral questions brings in far better job candidates.