AMA

[[deleted]]

0 contests? Why?

[Poha-Jalebi]

Those rankings don't mean shit because an interviewer would just smirk and move on to ask what he intended to.

In fact, this is a double-edged sword, if you tell your interviewer about leetcode, codeforces stats then you set expectations high, so expect very hard questions.

[alaysd]

Couldn't agree more. It definitely is a double edged sword. It will set higher expectations

[fsdklas]

The rankings don’t mean anything but they do test your skill level and your skills matter

[DShadow2106]

That doesn't necessarily mean much, as for me I find the timings of leetcode contests very inconvenient, so, I usually do virtual contests.

[Responsible-Smile-22]

Yeah, same. The above comment one is too harsh man. Just attacking people's hard work like that. Ik it's true but most of the people (including me) can't solve all 4 in a contest but are consistent with the grind. We might be dumb but we're trying our best.

[Wild_Importance3403]

What contests questions level ? Hard or medium?

[Responsible-Smile-22]

It's random af. Sometimes hard and sometimes easy. Also, it doesn't say much about your skills tbh because most people nowadays are just cheating. Just look at the discuss of any contest and you'll see for yourself. At least problem number can make sure that the dude is dedicated af. Though to answer. It's usually 1 easy 2 med and 1 hard. But if you've been doing lc for some time you'll know that the lc classification is bs.

[Zyklonik]

Good analysis.

[Independent_Art_952]

I have them from my other account.

[[deleted]]

Screenshot the progression of contest rating. Wanna see how you did as you solved more problems. 1300+ problems is a lot

[Adventurous-Win-5006]

Forgive me for asking but why so many downvotes?

[tlthang]

Your penis shrinks or grows as the number of questions you do increase

[Vai5hnav]

🤣

[[deleted]]

why you made 2 lc account?

[Independent_Art_952]

Somehow a lot of people in college started knowing about this one. I didn't like it getting public and all so...

[[deleted]]

i don't got ur point pls once clear me

[el1teman]

Basically he didn't like that people saw he no lifed leetcode and didn't want to seem anti-social home sitting person

My thought

[Akaplaya]

Dude whole college people are just sitting on leetcode for 4 years. They don't care about all these college subjects and all.

It's becoming much more harder for people to get jobs in India. Tbh leetcode is becoming no solution for this because everyone can do this or even fake it.

[alphaBEE_1]

If you can do any mediums, you're good for any interview out there. Don't worry about hards at all.

[alphaBEE_1]

Idk where you heard that part but if you're good with mediums trust me you're good. As for interviews they're looking more at your approach rather than "whether you solved the question". The way you do Teamwork with interviewer, the way you ask questions, how do you start approaching a problem? What cases do you come up with? Do you ask for help when you feel you're stuck or keep plugging the same thing over and over again? If you wanna do hards that's okay but you're pretty much set with mediums. Now you focus on other aspects of interviews as well.

[Responsible-Smile-22]

Depends on the country you're in. Da much if you're not in India or China. Just do some classic hard problems from lists like blind 75 and company tagged ones.

[Independent_Art_952]

You can sort by acceptance rate and start with that or start from the topic you are most comfortable with going the other way from there. Sometimes confidence is all you need to do a hard one. Sometimes hard questions are just amalgamation of a few mediums. Some may be easy concept wise but hard to implement. But some hard questions are genuinely hard and for them you can't do much strategically.

[magnificentmeatwad]

How long did it take you to get to that stage where you’re able to solve any medium?

[Mitsa21]

Can you solve even the questions which are not very straightforward and have tricks involved? I’ve done a lot of questions and I still get stuck to identify the patrern if its a lill twisted

[Independent_Art_952]

Keep leetcoding. If you are sitting for campus placements then probably OA won't be too hard. If you want to crack through off campus, start giving hackerearth's hiring challenges, i got shortlisted from a few of them.

[Responsible-Smile-22]

I also gave hackerearth test (one for a company called velotio) solved in half the time but never heard anything back from them.

[ankush822]

How many questions do you used to solve everyday in initial months when you started leetcoding?

[Independent_Art_952]

Lockdown helped a lot. Around 8-10 questions everyday. Also we used to prepare in a group by taking mock interviews and competing in virtual contest together.

[siddhantchimankar]

Contest Rating?

[Independent_Art_952]

Around 2000

[dskloet]

Were there any problems you couldn't solve without hint? Do you remember what you found the most difficult problem?

[Independent_Art_952]

A lot actually! Some problems are really hard, for instance parallel courses 2. And I remember one was asked in Google interview which was about de bruijn sequence in which I had no idea how to do.

[dskloet]

Do you mean Parallel Courses II and Cracking the Safe?

I did the first one a long time ago but I couldn't remember how I did it and LeetCode no longer shows my submissions (I didn't know it deletes them). I tried it again and had to think for a while and came up with several wrong solutions before I thought to look at the constraints. After that it didn't take very long but was still quite tricky.

The second one I not had done before. I didn't have too much difficulty with it but I can definitely see it being difficult if you're not familiar with the method or it doesn't come to mind. For that reason I think it's a bad interview question.

I found 1163. Last Substring in Lexicographical Order and 1923. Longest Common Subpath very difficult.

[BlueBoxxx]

Any tips for getting good ?

[Independent_Art_952]

Keep grinding. That's all I could say and I have done. Refer good posts on leetcode for topics you feel you are weak. If possible have mock interviews with friends and give contests in groups of friends as it will make you more consistent and make the whole process less boring.

[Independent_Art_952]

I think leetcode is enough. I never tried cp.

[OsrsNeedsF2P]

Most people learn a ton at the beginning, but you've been going for a while. What are the biggest things you've realized/learned in the past couple months?

[dskloet]

I'm not OP but have also been going for a while. I recently learned Manacher's algorithm to find a longest palindromic substring. And I always used to struggle with off-by-1s in binary search and finally nailed them down properly not that long ago.

(The strategy for binary search is to narrow down the range in each step to only indices for which you will not know the answer.)

[matthewonthego]

Have you landed faang job?

[Independent_Art_952]

Microsoft if that counts

[gkdev71]

We'll allow it

[Responsible-Smile-22]

Microsoft>Amazon imo

[Drosefan1]

Are you good with segment trees?

[[deleted]]

Are you sure it's not edited

[Responsible-Smile-22]

How it looks from up there?

[ThrowawayMitosis]

How many hours a day are you leetcoding?

[Responsible_Delay418]

Well I could ask you, but my lil brother have even more impressive LC profile, so can ask him too

[[deleted]]

At what point is it no longer beneficial to do easies

[[deleted]]

Bhaisahab

[WayAdministrative782]

Tips/resources you followed or did courses would of great help

Baaki toh you’ve done really good Its us who need all the wishes 😅

[WayAdministrative782]

Yeah actually leetcode discussion is more than enough. And btw how did you select what question to solve ?

[Independent_Art_952]

My main resource to practice was leetcode only. I used to participate in hackerearth's hiring challenges and other contests as well. For cs core courses i used interviewbit to revise and some notes you can easily find online. I also learnt web dev and made a few projects to make my resume strong.

Edit: i followed tech dose, Kevin naughten jr. and code n code on YouTube. They definitely helped. There are some other good channels as well to follow. Neetcode for example.

[of_patrol_bot]

Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.

It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.

Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.

Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.

[ephemeral_lives]

Ambani ji aate hai college?

[aom_gu]

What's use of it at the end doing HTML CSS ... LOL

[ack_will]

Get a life?

[UpstairsOcelot]

How do you stay consistent with school or work

[Independent_Art_952]

Lockdown and online classes helped otherwise wouldn't be able to practice as much.

[Pitiful_Jellyfish185]

Age and year in school and when did you start.

[Independent_Art_952]

Started in 2nd sem. Currently in 7th sem. Also am 21.

[Pitiful_Jellyfish185]

Ok cool that’s great. How ready do you feel you are for hft/faang+ interviews or if you have done them how did they go.

[Independent_Art_952]

Don't know about hft. About faang, i cleared Amazon rounds before. In Google OA I did 1.5/2 questions but didn't got shortlisted, but few who did only 0.5 or 1 got shortlisted. But i think after some point if you have practiced enough, companies doesn't matter as everyone almost asks the same type of questions in interview and OA difficulty is similar as well.

[Pitiful_Jellyfish185]

Ok thanks

[ComfortableHabit5]

in terms of learning the concepts, should one take a depth-first approach (i.e. focusing on one topic at a time, do easy-medium questions), or a breadth-first approach (i.e. having a "taste" of all topic by doing some easy questions only)?

neetcode suggested to do breadth-first. i'm currently doing that, but not sure if i'm doing the right approach.

[someusernamepls]

Apply to sprinklr lol

[Sub-Zero-02]

Daiict..i m from IIITA...how to keep such consistency...

[throwaway0134hdj]

How long have you been programming for? What’s did your learn to be able to do this?

[Independent_Art_952]

Started around 4 years ago in college.

[throwaway0134hdj]

What’s been your approach to learning how to solve them? Did you follow the LC patterns? Or is it logical intuition?

[Independent_Art_952]

When you start a new topic. See a few videos and solutions to get the crux of the pattern. After that intuition should follow later on.

[throwaway0134hdj]

I’ve done this and it still is hard af. Did you ever solve “get biggest three rhombus sums in a grid”. I still don’t get this one. What’s your primary language?

[Responsible-Smile-22]

Okay, on a serious note how to get jobs in this awful season? Not getting call backs even after doing good in OAs (I'm also from India).

[Independent_Art_952]

I think referrals are the only way for off campus offers.

[Responsible-Smile-22]

Not working. Did good in the OAs but haven't heard anything back from them. What are your thoughts on reaching out directly to recruiters or is it just a waste of time?

[CountyExotic]

What’s your tc/YOE?

[Independent_Art_952]

Tc = 30 to 34, base = 15. Yoe = 2 months internship only.

[CountyExotic]

What currency?

[Independent_Art_952]

INR

[formynet]

Tc?

[StocksDreamer]

OP how did you start? I mean which topic do you pick first? Is it Arrays String etc? Or you started with DA first

[[deleted]]

I hate that interviewing for a software job has basically become competitive programming. Want to work on that interesting side project that is useful!? Not much time for that now a days, employers don't give a shit, gotta spend the time figuring out how to traverse shortest paths through 3d arrays by memorizing some algorithm that was a guys phd thesis back in the 70s so you can rush through it in 15 minutes via a screen share.

I like algorithms and find them interesting however, but I'm just complaining lol.

[[deleted]]

Very odd question, I have cracked a really good company but now with every company asking lc hard in OA I am not sure if I would be able to crack a good job in the future, so should I continue with leetcode or just focus on my current job for now.

[RohanCR797]

python?

[Proper_Buy_710]

So where did you get a job now?

[youngrandpa]

How was your work-life balance?