[hiddencost]

Uh, I think the culture that normalizes this kind of extreme approach is really unhealthy and creates a very false mythos around this process. You can see from his other comments that the author will likely burn out if they don't learn how to take care of themselves.

This whole thing feels like myth making. Googler's aren't perfect space aliens.

I spent ~ 6 hours prepping for my interviews, and got an offer. About half that time was cramming Stroustrup's "A Tour of C++" for my C++ interview, since I hadn't used it in a year or so. The other half was going through the most common data structures and algorithms and refreshing my memory.

The coolest thing I used in my interviews was Union-Find.

FWIW, the company I left was actively hiring and I had interviewed 15 candidates in the preceding two months, so I was used to the process.