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by alienthrowaway 1762 days ago
> I swore years ago to never again participate in leetcode hazing interviews

Thank you for your service! I'm not the smartest person I know (though I'm fairly smart) but grinding leetcode is not beneath me. It was really hard with the burnout, and the many years since taking the DS&A class in university, but solving that class of problems is satisfying; the way solving puzzles, or a Rubik's cube is - once you get the hang of it.

Smart people not bending the knee to Leetcode meant less competition for me when I was doing my interviewing rounds a few months ago. I managed to double my compensation. Hell, I'd do it all over again in exchange for the cheapest Tesla, or $40k once-off, but I now get to earn ridiculous amounts of money for years to come.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
1 comments
adi4213 1762 days ago
What kind of compensation packages are being thrown around currently? Do you have any recommendations how long to prep for a leetcode style interview?
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alienthrowaway 1761 days ago
https://levels.fyi has a good baseline data on compensation data, as it generally varies by seniority of the role.

> Do you have any recommendations how long to prep for a leetcode style interview?

This entirely depends on your starting level on Data Structures & Algorithms, and how much time you can set aside per week, but be warned though: it is a grind - I had to give up other hobbies for 6 close to 2 months (I'm not very smart, and I wasn't aiming for the most challenging tier of interviewers, YMMV). Once you've done enough questions (dozens or low hundreds), you start to recognize patterns and get a hunches for avenues to explore when solving.

I'd recommend "Cracking the Coding Interview" book, leetcode and/or hackerrank for practice as well as searching for YouTube for specific algorithms/structures that you find challenging - I struggled a bit with dynamic programming at first (speaking of which, know the class of questions your target companies ask so you don't waste effort). You can monitor your progress by timing yourself on how long it will take you to complete "easy" or "medium" (depending on competitiveness of company you're shooting for, you can time 1 easy + 1 medium, or 2 mediums, or 1 hard + 1 medium within about 50 minutes).

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