During my undergrad (Computer Science) when I took Algorithms and Data structures the instructors and TA's all emphasized the importance of that course, especially during job interviews. They reminded us to keep our assignments as something to come back and practice on and expand for interviews. At that time it didn't sink in completely but now understanding the interview process for any software engineering job, its spot on advice.
This is so dumb. It's like how many CS grads are forced to do Calculus "because it's a good exercise". That's called hazing. It's illegal in most organizations. Stop it.
The class we had in this topic, we had to learn the algorithms for no reason. It was completely pointless. Still, to this day I have used any of this for coding challenges.
well the interview process made it so that if you can't do the leetcode questions u can't make it to the next stage. It's not like people want to only study that, thats what employers ask.
Build projects so that the HR glances over it and rejects your resume cause I have only 1 year experience in angular instead of 2. Hiring is hard in any fields but it's straight up broken in tech, I feel like most people got their jobs because they were present in the right place at the right time, yes skill matters but again being at the right place at the right time matters even more.
just lie and put 2. if you have "the equivalent skills of a 2 year experienced person", because of your side projects and such, they will never find out you lied because you can back up that claim with how you talk tech, and do technical questions.
@@flossless200 exactly! Every project you do should be in some way a Segway into understanding (not mastering) a piece of the every growing list of tech. Don’t know typescript? NodeJS Server or React/NextJS project Don’t know docker or kubernetes? Build a web server or a system that needs portability like a trading bot Don’t know DevOps or IaC? Add terraform to your project The list goes on, and when you finish, bump up the years and sharpen your talk because 9/10 with most of the people you’ll be working with are bullshitters as well. That’s basically corporate America… who can put bullshit the other in a game of charades
yep, maybe small companies care about your projects but big faang companies dont care at all. The sad truth is you need leetcode. Maybe back 10 years ago when he was interviewing you could get away with just knowing your data structures.
To be fair there are easy problems that i can't solve (i mean i can solve anything just sometimes very crappy or not ideal lol) and some medium or hard problems that i had absolutely no problems with at all. Depends on your strengths and weaknesses tbh
Having done a bunch of interviews recently, I'm lucky if the interviewer has even glanced at my resume, let alone at my github. Leetcode is weighed much higher than any public github repos, at least in my anecdotal experience. I'm not convinced most employers even care about repos on your github, despite it corresponding much more closely with your work output than any artificial algorithm question.
Dude the title is the most classic clickbait ever, like it’s some eye catching shit to get some views, don’t expect real advice from him « OMG LEETCODE IS MID 😱😱!!! » of course you’re gonna click
It is just he has like 20 years of experience and is pretty much out of touch on how interviewing is done nowadays. He can get any tech job he wants due based on his past experience and projects and he thinks everyone can do the same as him. Like when was the last time he applied for a job and went through a 5 to 7 round interview process honestly... @@mokoboko2482
I started doing leetcode about a month ago, it's pretty good for memorizing the standard library and common algorithms imo. I find myself relying less on the language server now because leetcode has conditioned me to write code that compiles/works first try. It's also nice for practicing specific skills like bit manipulation when you don't have project ideas involving that skill. Definitely agree that a project is better for employability/learning "real programming" though
You need projects AND ability to solve difficult interview questions. You should never ignore either. Sure leetcode might not be all that but we can't ignore the reality that most large tech companies use DSA questions to filter candidates. Projects get you the interview, practicing leetcode can help you pass the interview.
The only reason I’d ask that question is to see your ability to talk through the process of solving it. Even if you didn’t solve it, if you tried, asked questions, accepted input and pivoted, that would put you above the rest.
Isn’t that pretty easy, though? You find the left most y minima point, loop through all the points and form vectors from the point pairs and choose your next point in the outline as the vector with the smallest angle. Once you reach the right most y maxima point you do the same thing but now look for the smallest angled vector that’s greater than or equal to 180 degrees. I feel like this is unironically easier than some doubly linked list question I’ve seen.
The issue is that those "annoying overly-complex" problems are EXACTLY what a lot of companies ask in their interviews. Of course doing projects is way more educational and better for your career than just leetcoding... But if you find yourself in a hard interview, those 900 leetcode problems suddenly matter a lot more than the projects that no one cares about at that moment.
Also, you don't even need to do 900 leetcode questions to prep for an interview really. I usually do grind75 and then a few more which amounts to about 100 questions and that is usually enough of a refresher for me to tackle coding interviews.
is 2023 i have seen kiddos solve interviews using chatgpt on 2nd pc's, and honestly nobody really give a fuck about those interviews anymore, my last interview was like: what yu do if u have 5 minutes for solve this problem... and i: i google it or i chagpt that, and guess.. i got the job
The worst part about programming jobs is that there are no rules, some companies prefer employees that are masters in data structures, some other still uses leetcode/hackerrank tests, some others clicks on your github link, some others doesn't give a shit about it, and you as a developer has to have time to do EVERYTHING as you don't know which the company will ask on an interview....
One extreme: go ham on making great projects, very high interview rate but you can't pass the interviews. Other extreme: go ham on leetcode, very high interview pass rate but you barely get any interviews
A lot of people missed the point here. You should grind leetcode because some jobs do ask leetcode questions. That's a given. But the interviewers are using leetcode as a filter. They want someone who can solve leetcode problems AND who understands the actual job. If all you have is leetcode under your belt, you're not hirable. It's not enough to do some beginner web dev course, and then start grinding leetcode. Even the top tech companies want more than leetcode proficiency out of you.
In a perfect world yes but in reality GRIND THE FUCK OUT OF LEET CODE. My last 4 interviews were literally word for word Leet Code Hard problems lmao, i know they were because they were on my list of problems to work through but I underestimated the stupidity of these interviews and did not think they'd actually have the audacity to ask that in a 45min interview. Spotify was the funniest one because although i had a working solution, it wasn't the most optimal one and when i asked interviewer out of curiosity what the solution was, she couldn't answer coherently either lmao. The face the guy made who was shadowing her as she tried to work through it was priceless. didn't get the job, they pulled the position when their stock crashed lol.
@@MaxFung Big fucking time, I 100% would have been laid off by the end of the year like most of their work force because they thought giving 100million+ contracts to podcasters was a good idea lmao. in the same interview cycle DoorDash also asked a word for word leet code medium question. the funniest part about doordash though is in one of the interviews, mind you i'm black, the engineer with a straight face asked me how important is diversity in a workplace to you... pure comedy
In the HPC field (supercomputers) we also prioritize peoples understanding of data types and algorithms. A raising issue for us is actually "leetcoders" as they often deem themself more skillfull than what they actually are. Where i work for example all of us can make operative systems from scratch as solo projects and some workers use this systems as their daily drivers. The issue with leetcode (while it does have uses) is that it does not give you the ability to see the inner workings of a system from above. Whatever "string" you pull most people are condemed to halt or crash the system. However if you can follow the flow of data, you can make changes very easily without error as the data flow is an absolute truth.
i dont get it, isnt leetcode for data types and algorithms ? You say you prioritize DSA but then you seems to say that the usual leetcoders "sucks" (you didnt say it like that...)
i am first year cs student , and i 'm starting the grind 75 problems , its a challenge for me to complete these challenges during this summer but i find its fun , i figured out as a first year cs student its worth investing all my time on it because it gives me a good understanding of why data structure and algorithmes are made , and i can understand better why we should learn data structure and use these concepts , ofc doing 1000 problems is much but maybe ill keep practicing these challenges weekly since i found it is fun to solve
I spent a decade of my career writing software that thousands of people used and could barely read my code after a long weekend. If you aren't a prodigy this is a life long journey
People who have little to no idea about programming think that the language is the most important skill to have as a programmer, while the truth is that understanding technologies and their ecosystems is the most important knowledge a programmer can have. Good for you if you can solve the hardest coding problems using the newest language features, but this is not even 5% of what you will do as a software engineer and if you don´t know how to make your code interact with rest of the system, your knowledge is basically useless.
Code challenges in general are very small scale I think. Actual tasks at a job are usually stuff that you take a couple of days to a week to finish, and that's when you are up n running and know the systems pretty well. Home assignments for technical interviews that are customized to the client is usually a little more representative, but as Prime points out just build stuff that works and solves a real world problem (even if you are the only user). That's worth 10x any generalized test.
Hit the nail on the head. No matter how good someone is at these algorithmic questions, it all falls apart when they can't produce software that is well put together, properly tested and most important of all: solved a problem they care about.
It doesn't matter if you're the best sde in the world. If you can't get through the technical round of Interviews because you're not good at algorithmic questions, then your skills as an sde will never get shown.
@@cyropox8235 In my experience, you would be better off staying away from the companies that only ask leetcode style questions in the interviews as they would just suck to work for anyway.
@@rochakgupta6116 nearly every FAANG and FAANG-adjacent company does this. Most large companies will give you a take-home hacker rank test as the first interview round, which you need to pass to move to on-sites.
@@cyropox8235 So, why do you wanna go into FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies? Is there anything wrong with joining a smaller company, learning the ropes, becoming a senior and and then moving on to a FAANG or FAANG-adjacent company?
@@rochakgupta6116 Mainly job prospects and future salary trajectory. Software salaries can be a bimodal distribution so getting into a Big N earlier in your career is a great boon.
that is the point. anyone can crank out some mids on leetcode, but its HARD to make a project that people want to use, that issues have been filed, that things are happening. it means you are up with the times and able to foresee what devs need.
Be on the same wavelength as the product manager but at the same time show how valuable of an asset you are to contributing the technical solutions to any said product.
I agree Leetcode doesn't get your foot in the door, only your resume and projects/experience can do that but Leetcode sure as hell will get you through the rest of the way once you have your foot in.
I used segment trees and DP on multiple interviews at unicorns and prop trading firms (who are paying $400k+ to new grads). I'd say it's quite worth grinding leetcode depending on where you're applying.
@nehpeoka7187 practice. i've done 1300+ problems, you dont need to be very high on codeforces to be able to blaze through all kinds of interview questions easily
A. You are extremely lucky and the company skips algo + system-design and they rather see your open source, get hired. B. You are unlucky and have to do stupid algo + system-design + garbage, then get hired. 90% of the times is B.
It would even say is like 99%. Mostly when I see A happening, it from some no name startup company or lower tier companies that do not really have the resources to set up a 5 to 7 round interview process. Hedge funds and FAANG are gonna test you stupid algos and system design. It is what it is. Also, companies that do A rarely pay well.
I literally had a technical interview just a hour ago and will agree here but will add : You should know where and when to use certain data structs I dont think I did too well but I know that I would have done better if I knew the what, when and why of my data structs. Learn them well.
I get your point. "If you want to be an author, then write...". If you want to be a software dev, then dev some really soft wares. BUT I also see a bunch of people that write really bad code, can only do super simple stuff and lack problem solving skills. I've mostly done CodeWars, and not Leetcode. But my experience is that it makes me a way better developer, because I get good at problem solving. Some projects, like writing my first text editor, was sooooooooooooooooooo much easier, due to my experience doing CodeWars "katas".
Absolutely hated standardized testing exams like SAT and the like; lc and aggressive useless toy problems feel exactly the same to me. I hope frontend teams will reconsider their hiring process and prioritize portfolios moving forward...
At my work we don't even do these. It's just a waste of interview time. Interviews should be a conversation. We talk about the candidate's past projects, decisions that were made, problems that had to be overcome and what it's like to work here. That said we do have a basic coding test before the interview that's pretty much fizz buzz just to avoid wasting time on the 90% of applicants that say they have 20 years experience but somehow can't write hello world.
I can't agree to this though. Once I transitioned from the last job I had, I already had a nice portfolio under my belt and yet I still had to struggle through interview processes and still had to do live coding/initial coding tasks which also involve some leet code crap
Hey prime, if you were to interview for another company today (as the candidate) for a software position, would you study leetcode beforehand? Knowing that there is a technical interview in the process?
@@ThePrimeTimeagen That's fair enough. I understand most data structures and algorithm patterns, I guess I gotta just practice more to really learn how and where to apply them, so I can get to your level 😁
Theory is great if you can code, but if you can’t understand fundamental architecture patterns like delegates, proxies, or pipelines to name a few, you’re just causing analysis paralysis. However at the same time don’t go putting patterns on flash cards. It’s engineering. If you want an overview you install a balcony. If you want to lighten it up you install a window.
I agree with you but that being said, FANG companies, for ex Google is ONLY asking leetcode-ish questions. You can't clear these interviews just based on the general knowledge or without solving problems on any similar platforms. This means the way Google is conducting interviews is shit, but for someone who wants to get in, thats the only choice. Also, with 5 years of experience as a software dev, I never had to use BST or graphs anywhere, but general knowledge about deeper concepts have been more useful.
You need both... It's grind feast, you need leetcode to not only knows to solve a lot of tevhnical detail. But also to solidify in an standard way any project you want to make. If you make a project not standard enough, guys won't look too much into your code. They don't have time for that, and they will assume you will make code difficult to read for other devs in your team.
My project has 4 stars lol, and that's including my own. If I could build something that is worth 800 stars I doubt I would have to be going crazy looking for a job
I use leetcode to warm up or even go to codewars for warm up on standard library functions. But after that I just build projects. I really don't care if i can reverse a binary search tree. LIke i know them well enough to think my way through the problem. even if it's wrong my theory will be correct. I'd rather build back ends in TS or golang. Just know your Data structures really well. Building projects will allow you to think through problems.
codewars >>>>> letcode, on letcode the editor is a fucking joke, especially for JS, few methods not working and they still push for use 1985 loops methods. is phatetic
Max Howell (the creator of Homebrew) famously was rejected from Google for failing some technical interview puzzle Everything you need to know after this video
It is a good screener for talent on higher levels with a lot of false negative but no false positives at all. So top companies can make a good uae of it when you got 100 candidates and only need to hire 5 - it makes perfect sense to give them hard level leetcode and take the 5 who passed. They will learn whatever toturial needed in order to do in the actual day to day job easilly
I think the whole "you have a good project" is an unreasonable approach - those kinds of things involve a LOT of luck and chance. A much more reasonable approach, that follows the same idea though, is: contribute to good open source projects. This way you show multiple things, that you can work together with other people and that you can solve real world problems and introduce new features.
I had been told by a technical recruiter at a solid company that open source contribution looks like 'actual' work. Even freelancing Upwork, Fiverr, etc., can serve as real world experience.
If this calendar I’m building when it’s live to the public has actual daily humon interaction, ie people are going to actually book trips with it, is that also what you mean by “something built that’s public”?
No, it means that the code is on a public platform like GitHub where other developers can interact. But of course having a public-facing app that generates traffic is super relevant too
Big tech filters everyone out based on leetcode, once you make it past the initial leetcode stage, then all this extra stuff matters. Leetcode is dumb, it is only relevant to your job if you are in some kinda research field anyway. It really just filters out who is and isn't willing to grind pointless problems.
Are American companies still interviewing with these weird algorithm questions and requiring degrees? (I assume "leetcode" is related to one or the other)
I think the advice here is: still do LeetCode, but just enough to get comfortable with the data structures he listed. Spend the rest of the time building things
Being good at leetcode will not get you hired. However, not being able to do the coding will also. For senior roles it’s also more about system design and leadership/impact.
2 minutes and 6 seconds of pure bullshit. Projects don’t matter in an interview, they really just wanna see you solve LeetCode mediums or hards in front of them. This video is pure wishful thinking but it does not reflect the reality of tech interviews. Maybe YOU care about projects in an interview and that’s cool, but wording it like every interview is like that is just misleading.
leetcode is unfortunately still necessary for many jobs...even senior roles will still expect some DSA knowledge, but you can focus more on building your portfolio as you become more senior
what i mean by stars is that _other_ people have used it, probably got feedback about it. a project in which no one uses isn't as great as a project people use. plus, stars do mean something, it means you can see the dev field, see what people need, and make a project that people enjoy. there is something there.
Book Smart vs Street Smart. Whether people see your stuff or not, being able to prove you wrote something that someone who is considering hiring you can look at, is essential. Tech is a field where you don't need a paid job to get experience. There are projects that everyone is doing so it's not going to be exciting to the community. But they are substantial enough to convince a company to give you a chance. At the top of every field you run into the popularity contest. The vast majority of tech jobs and the vast majority of tech workers are just capable ordinary people making more than average income. And most of the people who get those jobs have connections. They get recommended by professors or worked at another company or have friends who got in through their connections, etc. The public image only matters when you don't have a network. Once you get references and work history in whatever industry you want to get into, your career is set.
@@ThePrimeTimeagenIt’s quite likely they watched the video of a guy going into the world of buying GitHub stars and believed stars no longer hold value. I understand what they’re saying but don’t agree. It doesn’t take too much effort to look at a project and see if it has the potential to have that many stars to begin with.
You did not lie, but you are addressing the wrong audience; that suggestion needs to go to employers because companies will still want you to do LeetCode. You either do it, or they mindlessly move on from you and your 800-star project. Is it a stupid practice on their part? Yes, absolutely, but it is the reality of things.
Theres a gentleman that posted a video about bombing his Netflix interview. He had cramed in so many leetcode challenges his brain shutdown during the interview. He had mentioned quite a few times he didn’t think he was unique or special and didn’t understand how he kept making it through each phase of the process. During the video we learned that he had released a handful of open source projects and tutorials. He was so focused on the niche coding problems he didn’t realize his projects had put him in the top 1% of developers. Not his leetcode skills. I hope one day you two can find each other and he can get another chance to prove himself.
Leetcode does not count the constant time of the underlying code. So if you push your processing time down into the code your calling it shows as being faster even though it is much slower than a good implementation. Just another joke site against good programming.
I've interviewed so many supposedly "senior" software engineers that get completely lost the moment they have to write something more complex than a simple for loop. You can hate on leetcode all you want but if done correctly it proves beyond any doubt that someone is actually capable of thinking on their own and can actually translate what they think into a correct program. I don't get why people think this is a given. It's not. And you wouldn't want to be on a project with someone who doesn't have that skill.
This advice might be true for some startups and low to mid-tier companies. In case you haven't seen the meme, the creator of homebrew made this tweet years back: "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off.". For top-tier companies, you absolutely NEED to do well on their technical questions, and while that on its own doesn't guarantee a hire, if you don't do well on them, then it is for sure a No Hire. And in my experience, the only 'projects' these companies care about is your phD thesis.
You have 20 years of experience though... if you are fresh out of college or have less than 5 years of experience, there is no way a company will hire you based on projects alone. Blame the industry for placing importance on leetcode. @@ThePrimeTimeagen
I'd say leetcode itself isn't bad but it is definitely overrated. I would recommend doing at least 100 problems just to get a rough idea of algorithms and data structures. I think its really neat for that, even if some problems are hard to understand but even that is actually good practice for a real job lmao
Sounds like a balancing act. Do enough problems to deeply understand the data structures, but not so much that you take away time from robust projects.
Practicing is good but you've to apply your knowledge or it is completely useless From my personal experience, a poorly written Open Source project which solves certain problem and is somewhat popular is thousand times better than a well written private practice project or leetcode solutions. Because the employer can see how you're doing good in a certain field and can envision all the profit you're able to bring to his project
During my undergrad (Computer Science) when I took Algorithms and Data structures the instructors and TA's all emphasized the importance of that course, especially during job interviews. They reminded us to keep our assignments as something to come back and practice on and expand for interviews. At that time it didn't sink in completely but now understanding the interview process for any software engineering job, its spot on advice.
Rare TA W
This is so dumb. It's like how many CS grads are forced to do Calculus "because it's a good exercise". That's called hazing. It's illegal in most organizations. Stop it.
The class we had in this topic, we had to learn the algorithms for no reason. It was completely pointless. Still, to this day I have used any of this for coding challenges.
well the interview process made it so that if you can't do the leetcode questions u can't make it to the next stage. It's not like people want to only study that, thats what employers ask.
Yep. I understand the video's point but employers kind of force us to study leetcode in order to THEN be able to show them the personal projects.
Build projects so that the HR glances over it and rejects your resume cause I have only 1 year experience in angular instead of 2. Hiring is hard in any fields but it's straight up broken in tech, I feel like most people got their jobs because they were present in the right place at the right time, yes skill matters but again being at the right place at the right time matters even more.
just lie and put 2. if you have "the equivalent skills of a 2 year experienced person", because of your side projects and such, they will never find out you lied because you can back up that claim with how you talk tech, and do technical questions.
@@flossless200 exactly! Every project you do should be in some way a Segway into understanding (not mastering) a piece of the every growing list of tech.
Don’t know typescript? NodeJS Server or React/NextJS project
Don’t know docker or kubernetes? Build a web server or a system that needs portability like a trading bot
Don’t know DevOps or IaC? Add terraform to your project
The list goes on, and when you finish, bump up the years and sharpen your talk because 9/10 with most of the people you’ll be working with are bullshitters as well. That’s basically corporate America… who can put bullshit the other in a game of charades
yep, maybe small companies care about your projects but big faang companies dont care at all. The sad truth is you need leetcode. Maybe back 10 years ago when he was interviewing you could get away with just knowing your data structures.
me after being stuck on leetcode easy problem
🤧
To be fair there are easy problems that i can't solve (i mean i can solve anything just sometimes very crappy or not ideal lol) and some medium or hard problems that i had absolutely no problems with at all. Depends on your strengths and weaknesses tbh
Having done a bunch of interviews recently, I'm lucky if the interviewer has even glanced at my resume, let alone at my github. Leetcode is weighed much higher than any public github repos, at least in my anecdotal experience. I'm not convinced most employers even care about repos on your github, despite it corresponding much more closely with your work output than any artificial algorithm question.
its like this guy made this video because he wants people to fail interviews lol
Dude the title is the most classic clickbait ever, like it’s some eye catching shit to get some views, don’t expect real advice from him « OMG LEETCODE IS MID 😱😱!!! » of course you’re gonna click
he might as well have made a video that says beauty is on the inside.. It isn't a net positive for society to lie about reality.
It is just he has like 20 years of experience and is pretty much out of touch on how interviewing is done nowadays. He can get any tech job he wants due based on his past experience and projects and he thinks everyone can do the same as him. Like when was the last time he applied for a job and went through a 5 to 7 round interview process honestly... @@mokoboko2482
Same lol
I started doing leetcode about a month ago, it's pretty good for memorizing the standard library and common algorithms imo. I find myself relying less on the language server now because leetcode has conditioned me to write code that compiles/works first try.
It's also nice for practicing specific skills like bit manipulation when you don't have project ideas involving that skill.
Definitely agree that a project is better for employability/learning "real programming" though
You need projects AND ability to solve difficult interview questions. You should never ignore either. Sure leetcode might not be all that but we can't ignore the reality that most large tech companies use DSA questions to filter candidates. Projects get you the interview, practicing leetcode can help you pass the interview.
Bruh I interviewed at Airbnb once and they asked me a convex hull question 😭💀
The only reason I’d ask that question is to see your ability to talk through the process of solving it. Even if you didn’t solve it, if you tried, asked questions, accepted input and pivoted, that would put you above the rest.
@@darkopz my dumbass asking "what is a convex hull?" fully embracing "no dumb questions"
😂😂@@zhandanning8503
@@zhandanning8503hahahahahhaha
Isn’t that pretty easy, though? You find the left most y minima point, loop through all the points and form vectors from the point pairs and choose your next point in the outline as the vector with the smallest angle. Once you reach the right most y maxima point you do the same thing but now look for the smallest angled vector that’s greater than or equal to 180 degrees.
I feel like this is unironically easier than some doubly linked list question I’ve seen.
The issue is that those "annoying overly-complex" problems are EXACTLY what a lot of companies ask in their interviews.
Of course doing projects is way more educational and better for your career than just leetcoding...
But if you find yourself in a hard interview, those 900 leetcode problems suddenly matter a lot more than the projects that no one cares about at that moment.
The guy has been at netflix for a decade because he doesn't want to spend a few weeks on leetcode.
Also, you don't even need to do 900 leetcode questions to prep for an interview really. I usually do grind75 and then a few more which amounts to about 100 questions and that is usually enough of a refresher for me to tackle coding interviews.
you are correct, leetcode is the god of all software houses in my country. they worship leetcode problems more than projects or anything else
is 2023 i have seen kiddos solve interviews using chatgpt on 2nd pc's, and honestly nobody really give a fuck about those interviews anymore, my last interview was like: what yu do if u have 5 minutes for solve this problem... and i: i google it or i chagpt that, and guess.. i got the job
"I don't like murdering innocent people, but employers ask you to murder a child as a sign of loyalty, so I guess I have to."
The worst part about programming jobs is that there are no rules, some companies prefer employees that are masters in data structures, some other still uses leetcode/hackerrank tests, some others clicks on your github link, some others doesn't give a shit about it, and you as a developer has to have time to do EVERYTHING as you don't know which the company will ask on an interview....
One extreme: go ham on making great projects, very high interview rate but you can't pass the interviews. Other extreme: go ham on leetcode, very high interview pass rate but you barely get any interviews
Great advice, xpussyslayerx69420
A lot of people missed the point here. You should grind leetcode because some jobs do ask leetcode questions. That's a given. But the interviewers are using leetcode as a filter. They want someone who can solve leetcode problems AND who understands the actual job. If all you have is leetcode under your belt, you're not hirable. It's not enough to do some beginner web dev course, and then start grinding leetcode. Even the top tech companies want more than leetcode proficiency out of you.
In a perfect world yes but in reality GRIND THE FUCK OUT OF LEET CODE. My last 4 interviews were literally word for word Leet Code Hard problems lmao, i know they were because they were on my list of problems to work through but I underestimated the stupidity of these interviews and did not think they'd actually have the audacity to ask that in a 45min interview. Spotify was the funniest one because although i had a working solution, it wasn't the most optimal one and when i asked interviewer out of curiosity what the solution was, she couldn't answer coherently either lmao. The face the guy made who was shadowing her as she tried to work through it was priceless. didn't get the job, they pulled the position when their stock crashed lol.
sounds like you dodged a bullet my guy!!! lol had a similar experience at my doordash screening, question was HARD and there was not enough time
@@MaxFung Big fucking time, I 100% would have been laid off by the end of the year like most of their work force because they thought giving 100million+ contracts to podcasters was a good idea lmao. in the same interview cycle DoorDash also asked a word for word leet code medium question. the funniest part about doordash though is in one of the interviews, mind you i'm black, the engineer with a straight face asked me how important is diversity in a workplace to you... pure comedy
@@John-po9wz you should have trolled them and told them they are doing an unsatisfactory job and they need even more diversity
Around 2011 I had a job interview that was basically a TopCoder SRM.
Earth would be a better place without leetcode.
i think i could agree with this
I’d rather do LeetCode than answer trivial Java questions.
@@piappl they're not mutually exclusive buddy. And both are bad and not the only options
As a mediocre developer who is about to get replaced by AI, I couldn't agree more
No doubt about that
In the HPC field (supercomputers) we also prioritize peoples understanding of data types and algorithms. A raising issue for us is actually "leetcoders" as they often deem themself more skillfull than what they actually are. Where i work for example all of us can make operative systems from scratch as solo projects and some workers use this systems as their daily drivers. The issue with leetcode (while it does have uses) is that it does not give you the ability to see the inner workings of a system from above. Whatever "string" you pull most people are condemed to halt or crash the system. However if you can follow the flow of data, you can make changes very easily without error as the data flow is an absolute truth.
i dont get it, isnt leetcode for data types and algorithms ? You say you prioritize DSA but then you seems to say that the usual leetcoders "sucks" (you didnt say it like that...)
i am first year cs student , and i 'm starting the grind 75 problems , its a challenge for me to complete these challenges during this summer but i find its fun , i figured out as a first year cs student its worth investing all my time on it because it gives me a good understanding of why data structure and algorithmes are made , and i can understand better why we should learn data structure and use these concepts , ofc doing 1000 problems is much but maybe ill keep practicing these challenges weekly since i found it is fun to solve
I spent a decade of my career writing software that thousands of people used and could barely read my code after a long weekend. If you aren't a prodigy this is a life long journey
@@flogzer0 thanks for the reality check 😂
People who have little to no idea about programming think that the language is the most important skill to have as a programmer, while the truth is that understanding technologies and their ecosystems is the most important knowledge a programmer can have.
Good for you if you can solve the hardest coding problems using the newest language features, but this is not even 5% of what you will do as a software engineer and if you don´t know how to make your code interact with rest of the system, your knowledge is basically useless.
f a c t s
@@ThePrimeTimeagen this is what I always tell my younger fellows.
Code challenges in general are very small scale I think. Actual tasks at a job are usually stuff that you take a couple of days to a week to finish, and that's when you are up n running and know the systems pretty well. Home assignments for technical interviews that are customized to the client is usually a little more representative, but as Prime points out just build stuff that works and solves a real world problem (even if you are the only user). That's worth 10x any generalized test.
Was waiting for this video.
Golden material
This video is supported by Tramontin knives, a straight and precise cut on the problem!!
i think this is a good thing :)
Leetcode problems have never made me feel such imposter syndrome/lack of capability in my entire career as a developer. Thank you for sharing this
Hit the nail on the head. No matter how good someone is at these algorithmic questions, it all falls apart when they can't produce software that is well put together, properly tested and most important of all: solved a problem they care about.
It doesn't matter if you're the best sde in the world. If you can't get through the technical round of Interviews because you're not good at algorithmic questions, then your skills as an sde will never get shown.
@@cyropox8235 In my experience, you would be better off staying away from the companies that only ask leetcode style questions in the interviews as they would just suck to work for anyway.
@@rochakgupta6116 nearly every FAANG and FAANG-adjacent company does this. Most large companies will give you a take-home hacker rank test as the first interview round, which you need to pass to move to on-sites.
@@cyropox8235 So, why do you wanna go into FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies? Is there anything wrong with joining a smaller company, learning the ropes, becoming a senior and and then moving on to a FAANG or FAANG-adjacent company?
@@rochakgupta6116 Mainly job prospects and future salary trajectory. Software salaries can be a bimodal distribution so getting into a Big N earlier in your career is a great boon.
That is also 1000 times harder to do
that is the point.
anyone can crank out some mids on leetcode, but its HARD to make a project that people want to use, that issues have been filed, that things are happening. it means you are up with the times and able to foresee what devs need.
Be on the same wavelength as the product manager but at the same time show how valuable of an asset you are to contributing the technical solutions to any said product.
I agree Leetcode doesn't get your foot in the door, only your resume and projects/experience can do that but Leetcode sure as hell will get you through the rest of the way once you have your foot in.
I used segment trees and DP on multiple interviews at unicorns and prop trading firms (who are paying $400k+ to new grads).
I'd say it's quite worth grinding leetcode depending on where you're applying.
Segment tree in interview lol
@nehpeoka7187 practice. i've done 1300+ problems, you dont need to be very high on codeforces to be able to blaze through all kinds of interview questions easily
Pro Tip. I can smell the bathroom ramen from here.
DAMN
A. You are extremely lucky and the company skips algo + system-design and they rather see your open source, get hired.
B. You are unlucky and have to do stupid algo + system-design + garbage, then get hired.
90% of the times is B.
It would even say is like 99%. Mostly when I see A happening, it from some no name startup company or lower tier companies that do not really have the resources to set up a 5 to 7 round interview process. Hedge funds and FAANG are gonna test you stupid algos and system design. It is what it is. Also, companies that do A rarely pay well.
I literally had a technical interview just a hour ago and will agree here but will add :
You should know where and when to use certain data structs
I dont think I did too well but I know that I would have done better if I knew the what, when and why of my data structs.
Learn them well.
Being able to use data structures effectively is worth so much more than being able to solve the city scape problem
I get your point. "If you want to be an author, then write...".
If you want to be a software dev, then dev some really soft wares.
BUT I also see a bunch of people that write really bad code, can only do super simple stuff and lack problem solving skills.
I've mostly done CodeWars, and not Leetcode. But my experience is that it makes me a way better developer, because I get good at problem solving.
Some projects, like writing my first text editor, was sooooooooooooooooooo much easier, due to my experience doing CodeWars "katas".
Did codewars help for leetcoding ? like if you do codewars for long, leetcode isnt hard anymore ?
Absolutely hated standardized testing exams like SAT and the like; lc and aggressive useless toy problems feel exactly the same to me. I hope frontend teams will reconsider their hiring process and prioritize portfolios moving forward...
"Don't be dickin' around on LeetCode forever, okay?" - best
At my work we don't even do these. It's just a waste of interview time. Interviews should be a conversation. We talk about the candidate's past projects, decisions that were made, problems that had to be overcome and what it's like to work here.
That said we do have a basic coding test before the interview that's pretty much fizz buzz just to avoid wasting time on the 90% of applicants that say they have 20 years experience but somehow can't write hello world.
but wouldnt anyone with just few months be able to Fizzbuzz ?
I can't agree to this though. Once I transitioned from the last job I had, I already had a nice portfolio under my belt and yet I still had to struggle through interview processes and still had to do live coding/initial coding tasks which also involve some leet code crap
Hey prime, if you were to interview for another company today (as the candidate) for a software position, would you study leetcode beforehand? Knowing that there is a technical interview in the process?
Personally, I would not. I know enough about algorithms to usually get through those interviews. A base level understanding can really help things
@@ThePrimeTimeagen That's fair enough. I understand most data structures and algorithm patterns, I guess I gotta just practice more to really learn how and where to apply them, so I can get to your level 😁
This is gold! Now this just needs to sink in the industry at large...
Sraight to the point with short but solid justification. Nice :)
Theory is great if you can code, but if you can’t understand fundamental architecture patterns like delegates, proxies, or pipelines to name a few, you’re just causing analysis paralysis.
However at the same time don’t go putting patterns on flash cards. It’s engineering. If you want an overview you install a balcony. If you want to lighten it up you install a window.
I second this approach.
The OA I have in a week aint gonna be looking at my projects bro
Hilarious lol
I agree with you but that being said, FANG companies, for ex Google is ONLY asking leetcode-ish questions. You can't clear these interviews just based on the general knowledge or without solving problems on any similar platforms. This means the way Google is conducting interviews is shit, but for someone who wants to get in, thats the only choice. Also, with 5 years of experience as a software dev, I never had to use BST or graphs anywhere, but general knowledge about deeper concepts have been more useful.
You need both...
It's grind feast, you need leetcode to not only knows to solve a lot of tevhnical detail. But also to solidify in an standard way any project you want to make.
If you make a project not standard enough, guys won't look too much into your code. They don't have time for that, and they will assume you will make code difficult to read for other devs in your team.
My project has 4 stars lol, and that's including my own. If I could build something that is worth 800 stars I doubt I would have to be going crazy looking for a job
drop the link
I mean, it's useful for interviewing mostly, but I'd say that's it
I use leetcode to warm up or even go to codewars for warm up on standard library functions. But after that I just build projects. I really don't care if i can reverse a binary search tree. LIke i know them well enough to think my way through the problem. even if it's wrong my theory will be correct. I'd rather build back ends in TS or golang. Just know your Data structures really well. Building projects will allow you to think through problems.
codewars >>>>> letcode, on letcode the editor is a fucking joke, especially for JS, few methods not working and they still push for use 1985 loops methods. is phatetic
Max Howell (the creator of Homebrew) famously was rejected from Google for failing some technical interview puzzle
Everything you need to know after this video
Thank you for all of your videos
It is a good screener for talent on higher levels with a lot of false negative but no false positives at all. So top companies can make a good uae of it when you got 100 candidates and only need to hire 5 - it makes perfect sense to give them hard level leetcode and take the 5 who passed. They will learn whatever toturial needed in order to do in the actual day to day job easilly
The problem is that every other company nowadays asks for leetcode style questions even recently established startups
I think the whole "you have a good project" is an unreasonable approach - those kinds of things involve a LOT of luck and chance. A much more reasonable approach, that follows the same idea though, is: contribute to good open source projects. This way you show multiple things, that you can work together with other people and that you can solve real world problems and introduce new features.
I had been told by a technical recruiter at a solid company that open source contribution looks like 'actual' work. Even freelancing Upwork, Fiverr, etc., can serve as real world experience.
Wow. I needed that.
If this calendar I’m building when it’s live to the public has actual daily humon interaction, ie people are going to actually book trips with it, is that also what you mean by “something built that’s public”?
This is something you can point to. It's something that people will understand what it takes to build
No, it means that the code is on a public platform like GitHub where other developers can interact.
But of course having a public-facing app that generates traffic is super relevant too
@@ThePrimeTimeagen giggity broham
thank you for this
Startup founders who started all these big tech companies never grinded Leet Code. It's just a loyalty/compliance test more than anything.
I understand why people hate leetcode but I prefer it over take home projects 10/10 times
Real question, how do you make an oss that people actually like and use? Most of us are not gonna go out and invent the next rails
Big tech filters everyone out based on leetcode, once you make it past the initial leetcode stage, then all this extra stuff matters. Leetcode is dumb, it is only relevant to your job if you are in some kinda research field anyway. It really just filters out who is and isn't willing to grind pointless problems.
THE KING AGREES
THANK YOU PRIME
YAYAY!
Leet's not forget that their premium plan is $39/mo iirc
It's much cheaper for the long run subscription, but yeah they're milking people who just need it for a month or two before interviews.
You don't really need their premium plan though. They have like around 1000 questions for free. More than enough honestly....
Are American companies still interviewing with these weird algorithm questions and requiring degrees? (I assume "leetcode" is related to one or the other)
if you want 200k plus salaries yeah. Usually faang ask those kind of questions but now smaller companies have started
@@StfuSiriusly damn, that sucks 😞
your projects & YOE will get you to the door but leetcode will get you through the door
🔥
But I enjoy doing leetcode...
So do it because you love
Good point
Ruffled some feathers.
LETS GO
What are better alternatives for help?
I think the advice here is: still do LeetCode, but just enough to get comfortable with the data structures he listed. Spend the rest of the time building things
Being good at leetcode will not get you hired. However, not being able to do the coding will also. For senior roles it’s also more about system design and leadership/impact.
2 minutes and 6 seconds of pure bullshit. Projects don’t matter in an interview, they really just wanna see you solve LeetCode mediums or hards in front of them. This video is pure wishful thinking but it does not reflect the reality of tech interviews. Maybe YOU care about projects in an interview and that’s cool, but wording it like every interview is like that is just misleading.
What's the name?
The Leetcodegen
I should definetly put some utilities I wrote on open source. I'm just not sure how to get people to actually use them.
Good stuff! Short and sweet. Good nugget of wisdom.
The HR manager should have been Karen Rustivimsky instead of Karen Rustivinsky.
leetcode is unfortunately still necessary for many jobs...even senior roles will still expect some DSA knowledge, but you can focus more on building your portfolio as you become more senior
leetcode is life
I keep forgetting about data structures.
good take
What is the best language to do data structures??
The one you want use to learn data structures.
I might have to give up on programming. I’m too dumb to solve leetcode problems
What path would you recommend someone new to algorithms and data structure to take?
Github stars mean nothing but I agree doing a project is way more beneficial than Leetcode
what i mean by stars is that _other_ people have used it, probably got feedback about it.
a project in which no one uses isn't as great as a project people use.
plus, stars do mean something, it means you can see the dev field, see what people need, and make a project that people enjoy. there is something there.
Book Smart vs Street Smart. Whether people see your stuff or not, being able to prove you wrote something that someone who is considering hiring you can look at, is essential. Tech is a field where you don't need a paid job to get experience. There are projects that everyone is doing so it's not going to be exciting to the community. But they are substantial enough to convince a company to give you a chance.
At the top of every field you run into the popularity contest. The vast majority of tech jobs and the vast majority of tech workers are just capable ordinary people making more than average income. And most of the people who get those jobs have connections. They get recommended by professors or worked at another company or have friends who got in through their connections, etc.
The public image only matters when you don't have a network. Once you get references and work history in whatever industry you want to get into, your career is set.
@@ThePrimeTimeagenIt’s quite likely they watched the video of a guy going into the world of buying GitHub stars and believed stars no longer hold value.
I understand what they’re saying but don’t agree. It doesn’t take too much effort to look at a project and see if it has the potential to have that many stars to begin with.
You did not lie, but you are addressing the wrong audience; that suggestion needs to go to employers because companies will still want you to do LeetCode. You either do it, or they mindlessly move on from you and your 800-star project. Is it a stupid practice on their part? Yes, absolutely, but it is the reality of things.
Theres a gentleman that posted a video about bombing his Netflix interview. He had cramed in so many leetcode challenges his brain shutdown during the interview.
He had mentioned quite a few times he didn’t think he was unique or special and didn’t understand how he kept making it through each phase of the process.
During the video we learned that he had released a handful of open source projects and tutorials. He was so focused on the niche coding problems he didn’t realize his projects had put him in the top 1% of developers. Not his leetcode skills.
I hope one day you two can find each other and he can get another chance to prove himself.
800 stars, damn I thought my 30 stars project was cool lmao
Leetcode does not count the constant time of the underlying code. So if you push your processing time down into the code your calling it shows as being faster even though it is much slower than a good implementation. Just another joke site against good programming.
So basically build projects
IF ONLY GOOGLE DIDN'T REJECT HOMEBREW AUTHOR.
lol true
I've interviewed so many supposedly "senior" software engineers that get completely lost the moment they have to write something more complex than a simple for loop. You can hate on leetcode all you want but if done correctly it proves beyond any doubt that someone is actually capable of thinking on their own and can actually translate what they think into a correct program. I don't get why people think this is a given. It's not. And you wouldn't want to be on a project with someone who doesn't have that skill.
@julkiewicz how do you do it correctly so that you are hireable by big tech?
Beacuse they didn't need maybe more then that?
Remember when someone said Rust is mid
I hate tech interviews heavy on algorithms. In my entire career of almost 10 years I've never used a single algorithm on the frontend, ever.
Shout out to Exercism… it’s fun and a great place to learn new programming languages!
It's also mid because leetcode doesn't let you use nim
This advice might be true for some startups and low to mid-tier companies.
In case you haven't seen the meme, the creator of homebrew made this tweet years back: "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off.".
For top-tier companies, you absolutely NEED to do well on their technical questions, and while that on its own doesn't guarantee a hire, if you don't do well on them, then it is for sure a No Hire. And in my experience, the only 'projects' these companies care about is your phD thesis.
i literally have multiple offers at faang and work at the N of FAANG
its... not what you think it may be
@@ThePrimeTimeagen I work at one of the FAANGs as well. Maybe we're just doing different things :)
@@ThePrimeTimeagen Especially at hedge funds the above is true; my technical interviews at hedge funds were significantly harder than at FAANG.
You have 20 years of experience though... if you are fresh out of college or have less than 5 years of experience, there is no way a company will hire you based on projects alone. Blame the industry for placing importance on leetcode. @@ThePrimeTimeagen
I'd say leetcode itself isn't bad but it is definitely overrated. I would recommend doing at least 100 problems just to get a rough idea of algorithms and data structures. I think its really neat for that, even if some problems are hard to understand but even that is actually good practice for a real job lmao
How many people even have 800 stars on github?
Sounds like a balancing act. Do enough problems to deeply understand the data structures, but not so much that you take away time from robust projects.
I accept I am stupid.... Because it's really hard for me
Something being challenging does not make you stupid my friend.
Practicing is good but you've to apply your knowledge or it is completely useless
From my personal experience, a poorly written Open Source project which solves certain problem and is somewhat popular is thousand times better than a well written private practice project or leetcode solutions. Because the employer can see how you're doing good in a certain field and can envision all the profit you're able to bring to his project
In truth, this is a precious gem of knowledge, a treasure beyond measure.
Isn't leetcode or advent of code just single functions you end up writing?
Not a working product.
I like your opinion but i didn't expect it from you for some reason 😅
I love side channel