How Can I Improve My Problem-Solving Skills and Prepare to Thrive in a Mid-Level SWE Role?

Question

I’m an engineer with two years of experience working on a backend team at one of the major US banks. Unfortunately, I feel like I haven’t been learning or growing as much as I’d like in this role. I’ve been primarily tasked with DevOps/infra work and handling observability, which has limited my opportunities to write meaningful code and build my software engineering skills.

I’ve tried to move internally to a more development-focused team, but it hasn’t worked out, and I’m feeling frustrated with my current team and manager. Sometimes I worry that my skills are below the level expected of someone with my experience, especially when it comes to writing quality code and solving problems efficiently.

For the past three months, I’ve been preparing for interviews and targeting mid-level software engineering roles, including positions at Big Tech and other promising companies. However, I’m nervous about whether I’ll be able to thrive if I land a new role, particularly since metrics like code velocity and code quality are often emphasized at this level.

My question is:

How can I improve my problem-solving skills as a software engineer while balancing interview preparation?
Given that I haven’t had many opportunities to code at work, or tackle problems independently what strategies or resources can I use to ensure I’m ready to succeed in a mid-level role?

I’d appreciate any advice, resources, or strategies from others who’ve faced a similar situation or transitioned successfully into a more coding-intensive role.

Alex Chiou · Accepted Answer

Sorry to hear about your experience (or rather lack thereof) in your current role. I know many people who have worked at big banks, and let's just say that I'm not surprised...

First, I highly recommend the junior to mid-level course to understand with crystal clarity what it means to be a highly functional mid-level engineer: [Course] Grow From Junior To Mid-Level Engineer: L3 To L4

While you can't try out the code-related parts of the course as much, you should still be able to grow in other areas like asking sharper questions and being more proactive with meetings.

How can I improve my problem-solving skills as a software engineer while balancing interview preparation?

So if you're doing interview preparation properly, particularly with LeetCode/DSA (data structures and algorithms), this should actually happen naturally! The failure mode I've seen with many engineers on DSA is they just try to memorize everything and only focus on the code. If you're truly learning and engaging with DSA properly, it actually mirrors problem solving in the real-world:

Collaborative communication
Clarifying requirements
Clean code
Analyzing solution
Creating alternate approaches and outlining trade-offs
Handling edge-cases

I recommend my DSA course here to learn all of this: [Course] Master The Data Structures And Algorithms Interview

Given that I haven’t had many opportunities to code at work, or tackle problems independently what strategies or resources can I use to ensure I’m ready to succeed in a mid-level role?

Go through that junior to mid-level course and all the connected resources I link throughout the course.

How Can I Improve My Problem-Solving Skills and Prepare to Thrive in a Mid-Level SWE Role?

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