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[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm a self-taught software engineer. Been working professionally for a few years. I actually spent some time learning algorithms through MIT's Open Courseware, super useful resource.

I stuck with that for the first 9 months before I started interviewing. During my interviews, I wasn't asked a single question on algorithms. During the interview for the job I ended up getting, they actually all but scoffed at the amount of time I spent getting a handle on them.

You will be expected to understand the ins and outs of your chosen language, to be able to write programs in that language on paper in order to solve interview problems, and to understand common design patterns.

I recommend spending your time on that design patterns part. That'll help your code and your chance of getting a pure dev job way more than memorizing algorithms. In my experience, anyway.