[dajohnson89]

The methodical approach is applaudable, and I'm really glad it works for people like the author. Maybe it is indeed the best strategy. But after a few rounds of doing this, it gets old. Not old as in, "I'd rather be watching westworld than drafting this cover letter". But old as in, "I'd rather be shoveling diarrhetic pig shit than doing this code exercise".

I really love being a software engineer. The job application process is the biggest threat to me keeping that passion.

[maxehnert]

I completely agree. It's incredibly frustrating to stop working on any side projects and stop learning any framework/library stuff to focus exclusively on algorithmic questions for weeks or months. That's why I tried to make it clear you have to just push through and give it everything you can so you can get back to doing fun stuff again. No one likes doing this but lowly developers that just need a job can't do much about it unfortunately.