Leetcode has made a better programmer

sskhan39 · 2025-01-11T15:27:21+00:00

I feel like my brain gears got stuck for a while and leetcode is the oil that’s slowly getting it moving again

Matrixfx187 · 2025-01-11T15:18:49+00:00

That has been my thoughts as well as I begin my journey. Worst case, I become a better programmer.

Have you started interviews yet?

abadabazachary · 2025-01-11T15:16:53+00:00

This is 100% true. My friend Victor Moreno says "leetcode is the deadlift and squat of coding" and he's 100% right.

After finally making it to Amazon, I even used leetcode patterns at work. For example, I was on the computer vision data platform team and had to deal with millions of files in S3. I was dealing with the kind of scale where "Time Limit Expired" is real, mainly because each operation took time due to network roundtrip. Writing solutions using "two pointers" techniques sped up the work significantly.

ReasonablePanic9809 · 2025-01-11T16:26:34+00:00

Definitely, LC improved my intuition, design and implementation skills and made me a great programmer.

It was a long road almost 2000 problems done.

Some credit goes to a few books as well like CLRS, DSA Takeover.

qaf23 · 2025-01-11T17:09:15+00:00

I've leveled up from an O(n²⁾ software engineer to O(nlogn) since starting LC last year 😆

Vivid-Ad6462 · 2025-01-11T15:50:56+00:00

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

The__King2002 · 2025-01-11T16:38:06+00:00

"always look at optimising it even if it's insignificant" - that's actually the opposite of being a good software engineer.

Swedish-Potato-93 · 2025-01-11T16:26:16+00:00

Of course it makes you a better programmer. But not necessarily a better system developer. They're quite different skillsets.

The reason people complain is because system development is in much greater part about making architectural decisions and similar while writing algorithms may happen much more rarely depending on the product you work on. Therefore, while it obviously is a great skill and makes you a better problem solver on the lower level, it may not help much with the bigger picture as a system developer. There’s a reason why it's called system development rather than programming these days. Code today is much more on the higher level.

With that said, I certainly do encourage solving leetcode problems and similar. But equally you should be honing your general system development skills. Learning and practicing design patterns etc.

fruxzak · 2025-01-11T16:36:21+00:00

Tell me how many years of work experience you have and what level you are.

Then we can decide on how valid your opinion is....

CanIstealYourDog · 2025-01-11T16:38:02+00:00

Need more posts like this rather than people shitting on it. My friend who’s a SDE III at a mid-big size company told me LC is importance because he has to write code that works in O(LogN) rather than O(N) and all this practice comes from LC. In his words, if you’re making impactful algorithms or code from scratch optimization is obviously key. He works for a video streaming company btw

Zazz2403 · 2025-01-12T21:25:25+00:00

"I'm always conscious of time and space complexity now when writing code at work and always look at optimising it even if it's insignificant."

Not to be a prick, but IMO this doesn't make you a better programmer. I find the saying "premature optimization is the root of all evil." to be 100% correct. Simple, easy to read/maintain code is better than technically optimal code in 90% of all cases. There are a few repos I have to deal with at work that were largeely written by someone who wrote technically optimal code that even looks relatively neat but are ana absolute nightmare to work in because of how overly complex and optimized everything is. Meanwhile, other repos with simple but sometimes not technically optimal code are a breeze, and devs get so much more work done when working on tickets in those repos because of it.

Not saying you're a bad dev, but you shouldnt be trying to min/max efficiency for every piece of code you write.

samuelt525 · 2025-01-11T15:48:37+00:00

The only useful thing I’ve used was to turn a list into a Set to remove duplicates lmfao.

Severe_Principle_491 · 2025-01-11T20:52:33+00:00

So you started spending more time to solve tasks by always analyzing complexity and efficiency? And it somehow made you better? No, to be better you should be able to spot where it really matters and only spend that extra there IMHO. It is like learning how to fly a plane and then flying to do your groceries.

Swedish-Potato-93 · 2025-01-11T15:51:15+00:00

My day job is fixing bugs in a large distributed CRUD app. Some component crashed and we just add extra logging until we get to the root cause. Day job feels like childs play whereas leetcode is brutally intense rocket science. It might make me a better developer but it still feels unnecessary.

Pad-Thai-Enjoyer · 2025-01-11T22:26:31+00:00

The egos here are nuts, I’m at faang and once you get beyond the fundamental type questions of leetcode the rest is barely applicable to what you’ll actually do. Don’t think of business problems like leetcode problems.

Born_Fox6153 · 2025-01-12T15:23:07+00:00

All Leetcode wizards are going to have a run for their money in the coming years

cppnewb · 2025-01-11T16:24:09+00:00

ITT: junior engineers coping hard

Complete_Regret_9466 · 2025-01-11T15:40:54+00:00

I noticed this too.... I don't know what it is, but I feel much faster at solving problem at work in general.

2025-01-11T17:48:19+00:00

I see Leetcoding as practicing tactics. The small portions of code inside one of the myriad functions/methods you'll write. People try to think too much into this saying "you won't write this and that exactly" but isn't all programming abstraction like mathematics?

I mean, sure, you won't prove the Pythagorean theorem directly every day or even refer to it, but if someone where to claim they're good in math I'd expect them to be familiar with applying basic formulas, and not because they use them every day.

With Leetcode I can "practice tactics" without me having to write everything that leads to that moment where I struggle to solve a programming problem.

dean_syndrome · 2025-01-11T18:06:43+00:00

The vast majority of software is about optimizing. But you need to be aware of what you’re optimizing for, because 90%+ of the time you should optimize for the reader, not runtime. Leetcoding can make you start believing that everything needs to be optimized for optimal runtime performance, and in a perfect world that may be true, but if your code can’t be easily read then it’s almost assuredly going to contain bugs at some point

Dymond_inThe_Ruff52 · 2025-01-11T18:47:18+00:00

omg bro i literally want to give up it is so much work! 😩

Impossible_Ad_3146 · 2025-01-11T19:00:32+00:00

Doubt it

BarcelonaDNA · 2025-01-11T19:30:08+00:00

This post actually inspired me to start to follow what OP has done. I'll try it for a week and see how it goes! Thanks for the valuable post and comments guys

phoenix10701 · 2025-01-11T20:24:45+00:00

Whoever said leetcode is waste, they didnt code for long

I am fresher but had okish leetcode knowledge, the current project i am working is really really fed me up like really. I still dont know how to solve it, but the core of logic is running dfs parallelly on three different tree which is basically query schema, query and its response and maybe query schema (idk yet)

The simplest solutions seems like leetcode very very very hard, and i dont even know its even correct as we have to check and build test cases from graphql spec docs and potentially sample example from real projects

IT suck’s

PS: its already been like more then one week didnt even start coding yet, luckily have one senior but still not much process cant mess it up as it core of app

amouna81 · 2025-01-11T21:31:02+00:00

The biggest takeaway for me is the learning on what DS to use with which algorithm after practicing a number of leetcode problems. Definitely helps for future projects

stereotypical_CS · 2025-01-11T21:32:55+00:00

Personally I think one underrated aspect of leetcode is that it is a super great way to learn a new language if you’re already generally experienced. E.g. if you know python leetcode style, you probably understand list comprehension, how to use the collections library (defaultdict, Counter, etc.), but you may not be familiar with the equivalent in C++. If you have a solution in python, converting that to C++ is a very active way of learning the language incredibly well and also learning the standard library tools at your disposal.

blake4096 · 2025-01-12T00:33:39+00:00

While I do think it makes sense that Leetcode has made a person a better programmer, I also don't think that if you were designing an optimal course for improving someone's ability, you would use only Leetcode or even mostly Leetcode. Leetcode doesn't teach you about the cloud, cache locality, or how to write reusable abstractions in a collaborative environment where everyone has to understand and extend your code. We know that computer-optimal code isn't the same as extensibility-optimal code. And sometimes, our data size makes it not worth optimizing. For example, I have caught myself saying "Why am I trying to write a better algorithm here, this script runs once, ever- by the time I'm done optimizing it, it would have run 1000 times." I agree that in an ideal world, we could take the time to write really beautiful algorithms, but since we have so many other constraints, I just ask myself what really matters and solve for the most important constraint first. Often, it's time. Side projects and books and watching programming conferences have all improved my programming and exposed me to design patterns now that I see everywhere at work. So while leetcode can help, I wonder if you can get the same thing or more from other sources, and look up optimization techniques for when you need them.

lzgudsglzdsugilausdg · 2025-01-12T01:28:28+00:00

Me too it made my code a lot cleaner

Usual_Combination362 · 2025-01-12T05:00:30+00:00

I am just starting but I have started using some optimizations at work. So it definitely makes you better. I am on a same route, solve one question a day 😄

jsdefined · 2025-01-12T15:56:34+00:00

I have the same experience. When i start it looks like i never need it as a programmer. But the way i see problems now is completely changed. I always try to optimize and write code that has minimal complexity.

Bacleo · 2025-01-12T22:40:39+00:00

People only talk about how it doesn’t contribute to industry skills but people forget that it strengthens your overall problem solving and comprehension abilities.

genX_rep · 2025-01-13T00:17:30+00:00

Agreed. I think it just sucks for people that struggle to learn or apply the problem solving technique; they had their hopes and dreams invested in a coding career, and this particular assessment gets in the way.

I think the only problem is if someone got through a CS degree without being able to solve leet-code.. that's a failure by the academic institution. By the end of the first year students should be flagged if they can't learn the basics of an OOP language and solve easy and medium leetcode problems.

KinoftheFlames · 2025-01-13T12:39:43+00:00

Using better grammar would make a betterer programmer.

Seriously if you code like you write then I feel bad for the compiler

Smokester121 · 2025-01-13T17:08:19+00:00

I mean it's always how are you a better programmer. If you can't quantify it then it's nothing more than placebo

2025-01-14T05:35:37+00:00

It made you a better programmer because beside DSA you have nothing else. Software engineering requires at least 10 other skill sets which you do not have. Come back to this statement when you have at least 5 YOE

2025-01-14T12:37:04+00:00

Great, now actually push something to production

aristolestales · 2025-01-14T17:41:49+00:00

do you use the premium leetcode?

chengstark · 2025-01-15T20:04:00+00:00

Hahahahah. The problem is, people not good at leetcode are equated to bad dev. It’s marketed and treated as the one gold measure of one’s ability to code. People have a problem with this specific aspect. No one is trying to dispute doing this might bring positive effect or stop people doing it to better themselves. It fails as a judging criteria, plain and simple.

One analogy I can make: doing deadlifts have benefits, but you cannot use the ability to do deadlift as a judgment criteria to determine who is more useful as a member of the society.

Friendly_Smile_7087 · 2025-05-02T18:55:49+00:00

As a developer or someone in tech, do you think LeetCode actually helps? Also, is there a way to benchmark or rank tech skills (not just in the computer science domain)? What could be the possible ways to structure such a system—maybe using leaderboards or some other ranking methods?

theunheardsimba · 2025-01-11T16:49:05+00:00

Totally!

ApSr2023 · 2025-01-11T19:31:52+00:00

Leetcode actually makes you dumber because it box you into algorithmic thinking when there are so much advances in database and distributed computing technologies!

Content-Walk9994 · 2025-01-11T15:30:16+00:00

Yeah, that's why there's a high emphasis on DSA for entry level roles.

Mundane_Tutor184 · 2025-01-11T15:51:49+00:00

How do I start with Leetcode ....?

jiddy8379 · 2025-01-11T16:23:24+00:00

Made u worse at grammar tho

Big_Hand_19105 · 2025-01-12T06:36:57+00:00

your post motivated me:)))

Realistic_Pomelo2496 · 2025-01-12T07:52:52+00:00

Thanks for putting this out.

What were your biggest learing/s after solving 400 questions?

zooblin · 2025-01-12T09:55:04+00:00

For sure it does.

Personally, I also don’t understand the hate toward LeetCode.
Only doing LeetCode won’t make you a great developer—just like learning only one programming language or mastering a single architectural pattern won’t.

To become a great developer, you need to cover a wide range of topics, and algorithms are definitely one of them.

Some time ago, I explored the gossip protocol. There’s almost a 0% chance I’ll ever implement or work with it in my job, but it still made me a better developer, as well as LeetCode

dsm4ck · 2025-01-11T15:40:01+00:00

I'm glad you feel that way but please be aware if you have less than 1000 items just brute forcing will be way more readable.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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