Folks who are working in product based companies or having a good command on DSA and solved atleast 100+ problems, I need an honest answer from you here. For how many of leetcode medium/hard proble...

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Folks who are working in product based companies or having a good command on DSA and solved atleast 100+ problems, I need an honest answer from you here. For how many of leetcode medium/hard problems were you able to figure out a solution on your own without watching a YouTube video or reading an article on some site?

How many of medium/hard questions were you able to solve on your own without looking up for solution anywhere?

Software Developer

How many of medium/hard questions were you able to solve on your own without looking up for solution anywhere?- Grapevine

Any DSA solvers?
First time solving DSA and preparing myself to switch to better product based companies for higher package.
My question is: When I solve LeetCode, I am able to understand the question, come up with initial approach too but without looking into solution or explanation I am unable to solve it completely!😢
while watching a Youtube videos I am perfectly able to understand and solve the problem but when I solve a problem alone(without any resource) or live solve in mock interviews, I am stuck..

Anyone's gone thru the same phase, how to uplift myself from here?
TIA

Hey SDEs and techies out there, plz give me an info.
I have been consistently practicing DSA for the past 4 months , I have solved around <200 problems. Now when can I consider myself an interview ready? I can understand that "mere count" doesn't matter, but as an employee/hiring manager/Recruiter how much of Leetcode (say 3000+/500+ problem) will attract you to check out the profile/give referral/get interested in?
What else will you look out for in a candidate with 2YOE? Your insights will be valuable. Thanks a ton

Leetcode & DSA

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

RANT ALERT

I am a Software Engineer with 2 YoE. Wherever I apply they ask for 3+ or 5+ YoE minimum. I am hardly eligible for any roles. To one recruiter I really got angry and said "What is it that you believe 3+YoE candidates can do and 2+ can't ?" 
I got the same old reply - "It is company's policy" . I wonder who makes them. There are some really stupid people above us. 

Seriously - how does an EM decide that this position requires at least 10 YoE. I bet they haven't the slightest clue and possibly tossing a coin. Or worst, they think what they were capable of doing at 10+ YoE themselves.

Years of Experience is killing me

Software Engineer

I'm a 4th year student from a pvt college. Did 3 internships, one in a decacorn, one in a unicorn. Have an offer from Amazon for SDE 1 when i graduate, and one from the company I'm working at right now. Reached so far only with development skills, projects, hackathon wins and OSS contributions.

My leetcoding and competitive coding skills are downright garbage. I have absolutely no motivation to become a leetcode monkey and get more offers, but given the current market scenario, seems hard to get good offers without mugging up  800 leetcode questions.

Folks in software engineering who made it with leetcode, how did you do it, and what did you do to kill that builder urge and mug up leetcode. I can't do this anymore.

No motivation to do Leetcode

I'm a backend engineer with 6+ YoE.

I have never had interest in solving DSA problems. I started off as being very bad at it- I did understand the technical details behind various data structures and algorithms, but never had that passion about applying it to various leetcode problems. Over time, I have got better with DSA, but I still can't say I am at a great level- I still often struggle with Leetcode-medium problems.

I am confident of being a decent engineer- with a nice mix of tech and soft skills and an interest in building things. I also have some aspiration of joining a Faang company (or other such top-level company); but I feel overwhelmed at how "good" it requires you to be in DSA.

So, I wish to know- how good do I need to be at DSA before I can realistically apply at such companies, given my YoE. And, how may I possibly gauge how far away I still am from that "required level"?

How much DSA preparation is enough?

What did it take to get to that point? I'm reasonably comfortable with mediums but hard problems feel like a few notches above in difficulty. Should I find the equivalent rating of mediums on codeforces and work from there? Or is it better to keep reading LC hard solutions until something clicks?

To folks who can solve LC Hards

been leetcoding on and off for 2 months now, and even today ive to see solution for most of the questions. idk where im doin wrong (final year undergrad) . welp

How do i get better at this shi?

I am a backend engineer with a 9 year exp. In my fourth company now. Started with 5 lpa, now at 31 Lpa. 
Mostly have worked in normal companies only. I am from one of the NITs. 
I am not good at DSA. Everytime I have to switch a job, my resume gets shortlisted  and I get call via naukri. 
The things is in these last 4 job searches I have been rejected 100 times. I have been rejected by almost all the companies, 
Service now 5-6 times, oracle 5-6 times, Walmart 2 times, goldman 3 times, jpmorgan 2 times, Amazon 4-5 times, arcesium 3-4 times, msft 2 times. 
Apart from these, I have been rejected by adp, celigo, phenom, barclays, flipkart etc. 

Every time, I want to change a job, I'll get rejected by all the big companies and then will get selected at some normal company with a hike and will join them. 
I am at my fourth company now, and again I am searching for a job. Have already been rejected by GS, service now, phenom, epam, ice, demandbase in last 2 months. 
Every time it is the same DSA. 

I try studying, will do decent amount of leetcode prior to interviews. Last two months I am doing leetcode from strivers sheet. 
But same question I'll do here, and in interview will fail. Example I have done sorted array rotation, shares sell and buy, rain water trapping, and was asked the same question in interview and couldn't solve. 

I also want to earn more and get into some big company and stay there for some times, what shall I do? 

My concerns are, I am getting lesser calls this time compared to the last few years, I can't be switching job every two years. 
Want to join a big company and earn more.

How to get better at DSA?

I have 8 yoe , looking for mentor to crack technical interviews for faaiv

Mentorship to crack google

I am an engineer working in Deloitte. Overall Exp 6.5yrs. My tech stack include Python, Data Science & AI-ML and GCP. I wanted to give it a try for product based company. I am not sure from where should I start? 

Just a little bit of guidance will really going to mean a lot to me. I come from a civil engineer background and I have reached Deloitte through lot of struggles. But I think I can reach further with some help.

Need a dronacharya in this kalyug 🙂

Thanks in advance.

Need a sincere suggestion from folks working in product based companies

Data engineer

Recently I attended the interview, I feel dumb after I missed finding the another simple approach for popular 2Sum problem. I solved it anyway. 
Confidence broken. Your tips are appreciated.

How do you people start DSA practice again after a 3 month gap?

I graduated in 2023 and currently I am working as a back-end developer (node js)  in iot based start-up. My CTC is 5.8 Lpa and it is a WFH job.

I have some free time in a day and want to prepare for the product based company. I couldn't figure out what I should start with?
Should I grind leetcode or codeforces? 

Apart from this, what additional things should I prepare for product based companies?
Any resources I should go through?

My target is to switch in the next 6 months with some decent pay.

DSA vs CP

Backend Engineer

Hello awesome Devs!!

How do you keep up the motivation to grind leetcode after a regular job? For example, I am a software developer with 1 YOE and I find it boring to continue with those algorithm problems after a certain threshold. 

But anyway, I feel the hiring process is still the same for most and there would at least 2 DSA rounds for most of the product based companies.

How do you keep up the motivation for this?

Motivation for leetcode

Hello 👋 
I am aiming for a job at FAANG, I have never done DSA or CP, I was/am more into system design and just building stuff, now that I have decided on FAANG, I am starting to learn DSA (thinking about solving leetcode Q's in golang). 

Those who made it into FAANG, please share learnings/resources

What was your preparation strategy for FAANG?

I’m a college grad from IIT in CSE. I haven’t done any competitive coding or any proper coding during my college days for that matter. I have lost confidence in myself for some reason. I had taken up a business job but left it in a few months because I thought I could do better. 
I want to do competitive coding but as soon as I open my laptop, anxiety kicks in. 
I need guidance on how to proceed and what recourses should I use. 
I don’t want to waste my degree as I feel I can do better than my previous job. 

Please help me on fighting my demons.

Confused about how to proceed in life

Swiggy has become a toxic Ex for me now and there is no time to think about it at this point (for me atleast)
I need to get back on my feet soon (sole earner in my family) and need some help. 

It has been a really long time since I prepared and stepped out there, so need some help in knowing what's going on out there. It would be great if someone can help with these:
1. Any interview resources I can start with
2. What all things I need/should prepare for
3. Any tips and tricks for the interview preparation

I think it will be a lot of help for me and others too who are in the same boat.
I was an SDE2 here and thinking of stepping up to SDE3 as well but right now even an SDE2 role would suffice. So will prepare accordingly

Help with interview resources + preparation guidelines

I needed some help in coming up with a study plan to specifically train for Google's interview process. I currently have 4yoe, so I think the interviews will be for SDE2 role. There will be 3 DSA rounds, 1 Googleyness, and 1 Leadership round. I already have experience in DSA and have solved most of Neetcode 150 (except DP, Bit Manipulation, and some hard problems). If any of you have given Google (or any FAANG) interview before, I would love to get some guidance on how to prepare in 30 days. I already know most of the common algorithms like DFS, BFS, Sliding window, Binary search, etc so I won't have to start from scratch.

Also, the recruiter mentioned that I will have only 45 mins to solve two questions: mostly 1 hard and 1 medium. So I basically have around 20 mins per problem, which I feel is very difficult to solve a Leetcode Hard problem unless you have seen it before. Did I misunderstand the recruiter? Are there any tips on how to get good at this?

How many of medium/hard questions were you able to solve on your own without looking up for solution anywhere?

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