Leetcode & DSA

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

10mo ago
FreshlyBrewed
FreshlyBrewed

Treat dsa only as a confidence booster. Do only so much that whenever a new question is thrown to you any topic, you are able to confidently answer it in bruteforce>optimise>more optimise manner. Also as far as possible, avoid mentioning dsa problem solved number or leetcode profile link om resume. Instead add things like achieved rank so and so in contest so and so or global rank xx in codechef contest xx. Noone wants to see what you did, instead they focus on what you achieved :)

Idly
Idly

Got your point. Thanks

FreshlyBrewed
FreshlyBrewed

Also profile shortlisting doesnt depend on dsa nunber. At some point, while asking for referral people might ask you your number of problems solved. They ask so because they want to know if the referral they are giving is actually a prepared candidate or not. Else noone bothers to care about dsa number. I have seen people with around 200 questions solved bombing a interview and people in 1000 questions solved pooping in a interview.

BearBear
BearBear

Bhai mujhe almost tumhare jitna experience hai. Ye number of problems se kya matlab hai?

Agar mujhe 1st round Lena hota tumhara, toh jo tumne resume me likha hai vo puchta, tumhara product knowledge check karta, fir tum Jo tech stack use kar rahe ho uske basics aur framework ke kuch basic questions, SQL / PLSQL queries, Database aur networking ke basic questions, 1-2 DSA based questions (1 easy, 1 follow up).

Ya fir 1 DSA + 1 API banane ya fir core Backend based questions.

Check karne ke liye ki kya Kiya hai itne time me last company me, kaam seekha hai ya nahi. DSA bas 1 akela parameter nahi hoga. Waise mai Frontend se hi but thoda backend Kiya hua hai pehle. Toh product knowledge aur ye sab puch ke clear ho jaega ki fake kar raha koi ya sachme knowledge hai

BearBear
BearBear

Aur bhai sorry, referral Dene ke liye mai tumhare resume me dekhta ki kya kaam kiya hai aur baki referral Dene ke liye number of questions dekhna koi mujhe sense nahi banta, unless ki company poora DSA based hi check karti ho

Idly
Idly

I can understand your point.
DSA/coding question is 40% and the rest 60% on resume and the job requirements ...Sahi hai. But this kind of interview happens in service based + good/decent product based companies(Dell, HP, Schneider, Benz etc etc) But if you target little high up, like samsung R&D, JP Morgan, Adobe etc for SDE1, SDE2 even SDE3 "DSA" hi puchte for 60% of the interview aur kuch nahi... MAANG ki baath to mat pucho, bas 2-3 round srif DSA ka ki hota hai udar! DSA matters yaar, hard pill.

Ik other skills are important. But I wanted to know just about DSA thru this post..

RealOldmonk
RealOldmonk

DMed you to put some sense why these things doesn’t matter, I am an old monk for some reason 😄

Sapthinker
Sapthinker

Pls post here for all to see your suggestions

RealOldmonk
RealOldmonk

None, I actually look for a well written resume over what you would have done in leetcode, If these are mentioned, then I go and deep dive with GitHub code and everything else

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