Columbia University student Roy Lee says he’s been suspended after he built an AI program that helped him pass the brutal technical interviews for Meta, Facebook, Amazon, and TikTok. “I just got kicked out of Columbia for taking a stand against Leetcode interviews,” Lee said in a March 26 post on LinkedIn.
I spoke with Lee earlier this month after his story went viral on social media. Lee is, or was, a sophomore at Columbia who had an eye towards graduating in 2026. As a computer science whiz, he was all set to matriculate into the world of big tech and land a job for a FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) company.
He just needed to pass the technical interview. The tech interview, or “Leetcode” interview is a grueling process where a job candidate is forced into a lengthy and tedious coding test, often while an employee at the company watches. The technical interview usually involves problems the programmer will never face on the job.
To hear Lee tell it, practicing for the tests broke him. So he built a simple tool that takes screenshots of his screen during a technical test and asks an AI system to solve the problems for him. He said it worked and he got offers from multiple tech companies. He started selling subscriptions to his software, dubbed Interview Coder, and put up a video on YouTube of him using it to pass Amazon’s technical test.
Then someone tattled to Columbia. Lee shared a copy of the letter that the University shared with him. The name of the sender is redacted, but they claim to be an Amazon employee who was upset when they saw Lee’s video on YouTube. Amazon declined to comment on Lee specifically and Columbia wouldn’t comment on the story, saying that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prevented them from doing so.
“I leaked the letter, and it went super viral on X. That single moment probably protected me more than anything else,” Lee said on LinkedIn. When I spoke with him earlier this month, his disciplinary hearing was days away. He shrugged it off, saying he wouldn’t be in the country and was planning to leave the university.
According to his LinkedIn post, he appeared in some capacity. “At the hearing, Columbia forced me into a weird admission that the tool could be used to help students cheat in a Columbia CS class. (It can’t.) and put me on academic probation, scheduling another hearing for leaking all the documents,” he said. “A week and a half later, and I’m completely kicked out from school. LOL!”
A copy of the complaint Lee shared with me earlier this month came from Columbia. It had a big watermark overlaid on it that said “Not Distribute.” He had posted this picture on social media as well.
Lee also shared copies of notes from his disciplinary hearing on LinkedIn and X. “The hearing officers reviewed the evidence presented and observed that you published documents from your disciplinary record, including correspondence from Student Conduct, case files, a photo, and video recording of your Dean’s Discipline Hearing on February 12, 2025, to the online social media network,” the documents Lee posted said. “Due to the nature of the violation(s), you are suspended from Columbia College effective immediately and eligible to return after May 20, 2026.”
Lee is selling subs to the software that got him into so much trouble for $60 a month. Every battle with Columbia raises his profile just a little more. “It’s funny now and an amazing story in hindsight, but the truth is I was tweaking bad throughout this entire process,” he said on LinkedIn. “Taking this much risk tested my mental strength to its absolute limit, but I’m super glad I did it.”
