[aaron5]

Thank you for being so specific! Numbers and time-frames are really helpful for me - even if I wiggle them, or miss them, they are bench-marks in my mind. For example, I would have no idea how much leetcode to practice; but you've given me a nice ballpark and a book to start from. I'll see if I can get my hands on that book while here in China! Thank you again

[lifeplusplus]

If you want high salary potential of FAANG and want to go there, then you'd have to be good at algos, regardless of if you have 1 year exp or 10 years exp and Fullstack expert. So you can skip the unrelated part and just learn algos and get in at the start of career. If algo is too much you can apply everywhere else but instead of algo you'd be tested on other skills. Reason TOP companies don't test open techs is because they have internal tools they use so they can't test people on things nobody would know on account of not being in the company. So they test on something very general and innate to programming.

[aaron5]

Of course I'd love that FAANG salary, but I guess the only way I'll know if I'm good at algos is to give them a shot. I think I'm smart - but, hell, almost everybody on this site blows me away with how smart they are.

However, last night I opened up that leetcode stuff - and I got lost in it! Just like some of my old physics problems, they're so interesting to puzzle out. And, granted, interest isn't enough, but it's still a nice indicator. I just had fun, just fun, going over one of those algo problems last night.

Thank you again for giving me so much of your time!

[lifeplusplus]

try easy ones, just being able to read leetcode question requirements is a skill. As someone from just cs background and not math background the question were phrased very much like a math problem. But they are not. It's basically testing how much you can think like a compiler. So do dozens of easy ones then do some reading/courses. Then move onto harder questions.

[aaron5]

Nice! I'm looking forward to going through some more of them.