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Did 217 Leetcode across 1 year - Am I ready for interviews?

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Solutions Architect II at Amazon2 years ago

I want to know if I'm ready to start interviewing. Here's some additional context:

  • I'm confident with easy and easy-medium questions, 50-50 with normal-mediums, and I'm having tough time with harder-mediums and hards.
  • I can identify and apply most patterns but the topics I struggle with are heaps, bit manipulation (python sucks here), backtracking, and dynamic programming.
  • I'm more confident with System Design than LeetCode due to professional experience. I also studied through 4 use-cases in Grokking the System Design for practice.
  • I've done 217 Leetcode questions total in the span of 1 year. Of those, 100 new questions were done in the past 6 months. I also re-do questions using spaced repetition in a Notion table with ToDo,
  • For recruiter phone-screens I kinda struggle to explain what I do in my role since I do a little bit of everything. I need to work on a concrete explanation.
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Discussion

(2 comments)
  • 18
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    Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
    2 years ago
    • You're almost certainly ready for phone screens. Onsite could be a problem as you will often get LeetCode hards there
    • You can start doing phone screens now, and after you pass, schedule the onsite as far out as you can (for Big Tech, you can generally put it 3-4 weeks out). During that gap, study LeetCode hards
    • It's good to have a "build the plane as you fly it" mentality for interviews. The problem with interview prep, LeetCode especially, is that there's a "freshness" factor. If you did a bunch of LeetCode problems 1 year+ ago, you won't remember it for interviews now
    • You will never feel 100% prepared for interviews. Just get to a decent level and start doing it, learning along the way. Interview with less lucrative companies at the beginning to get into the groove

    I recommend checking out these resources to learn more about data structures and algorithms (DSA) and how to manage your interview process overall:

  • 3
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    Financial Company
    2 years ago

    Great question and answer! I'm in the same boat as the OP, so appreciate the feedback :)

    I have a nice related question here: "Should I quit to prep for interviews?"