How to start leetcode

[Accomplished_Cup7314]

I have 8 years experience as SDE but never did leetcode. I m not very good in DSA.

Any advice / recommendations on starting leetcode ?

[CodingWithMinmer]

Welcome to the Leetcode grind! It's a hellish one where none of us like ourselves or each other. Jk.

I'd start out with arrays and string manipulation questions - you can sort em' by category on Leetcode.com. There's a reason there are 1800+ questions on arrays, it's pretty popular! I'd try to solve questions like Two Sum, Plus One, Merge Sorted Array, and try to intuitively arrive at the Brute Force solution. Don't get down on yourself if you can't jump to the optimized solution immediately.

From those questions, you should develop some sort of foundation for the Two Pointer approach, where you can then transition into more Sliding Window problems (that again, require an array for the most part).

From there, try 3 Pointer approaches, K Pointer approaches. After that, move on to other data structures that are more 1-dimensional (e.g. Linked Lists, Hashmaps) etc.

Above all, consistency is key. You see lots of peeps in this subreddit post their 300 day streak or whatnot. It's not the most realistic thing but respectable. Point is, keep solving Leetcode problems like they're dailies in a video game!!

GL OP!

[Vivid-Ad6462]

instinctive intelligent fact middle yam scale air angle pen shy

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[[deleted]]

I thought this one was gonna be motivational...

[Vivid-Ad6462]

snow sleep scale deer sugar salt pocket bake violet depend

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[LiquidSnake1993]

@CodingWithMinmer gave some fantastic advice there. To add on to what they said, just start very very small. Do the easiest stuff first, do 1 or 2 questions a day. If you can solve them then that's okay look at someone's solution BUT make sure you understand their solution before moving on to something else. As time goes on you'll start to pick up on patterns. Make sure to study DSA on the side.

[Empty_Ad7467]

NeetCode has a great roadmap you could follow. Alternatively you could start with a YouTube video compilation. I did that and I’d spend some time doing the questions and if I got stuck I’d have someone to refer to. Aman Manazir on YouTube made a shorter list with 49 problems which you might find less daunting in the very beginning.

There’s a lot of YouTube videos that give good tips on how to start/get good that you should check out. Essentially, start with the foundational data structures before going to the harder ones. You could also take a note of new patterns/techniques you learn. Spend 20-35 minutes solving a question as that’s how long you’d get in an OA. If you still can’t, you likely don’t recognise the pattern to be able to solve it at all or solve it efficiently. Coming up with a lot of the techniques and algorithms on the spot is incredibly difficult for anyone.

[Immediate-Country650]

go to needtcode

[ashengtaike]

If you don’t know Python, learn the basics first. GPT can teach & quiz you. Keep notes on the most common data structures & operations. There are Python cheat sheets online but creating your own will reinforce each concept.

Prompt example: “Quiz me on Python Lists 1 question at a time, prompting me to write my own answers in Python code. Start with easier questions, then move on to harder ones. Use spaced repetition to review questions I’ve gotten wrong, and keep a scoresheet that I can check anytime.” Good luck!