[booboofixer]

In your experience, have you ever seen somebody get hired without doing well on the typical leetcode problems? Are FAANG companies completely married to the leetcode interview idea or do they make exceptions?

[coachdarek]

While it can happen, I'd say it's very rare that if a candidate does poorly on the LC interview that they would get hired at FAANG companies in the current hiring environment.

FAANG companies don't really have another better alternative to Leetcode interviews so that's what they go with.

So yes, most FAANG are married to leetcode interviews especially for SDE1/SDE2 roles.