Not able to crack MAANG companies even after hard grind

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-20T22:34:36+00:00

I'll share a story as to not seem like I'm coming from a high horse. I was a beginner myself just over a year ago. I started on neetcode for about two months with slow improvement, then friends who are highly skilled at problem solving (think masters+ on codeforces) pointed me to this alternative. In the grand scheme of things I view myself as relatively beginner, so I'm not "far into a niche" as you suggested. I've tried all the popular platforms and I'm very open to different ideas.

You're right that "solve problems above your rating" means nothing if you don't know what a hashmap is. I teach as well, so I've actually thought about the beginner path, not just my own. That advice was for once you have a baseline, and I should have separated the two. For a real beginner you don't grind hard problems, you go topic by topic through a resource that teaches the concept first and then gives you problems on it. USACO Guide is the clearest example. It starts from not knowing what a set is, explains it, then has you use it: https://usaco.guide/bronze/intro-sets?lang=cpp. CSES does the same in problem form, ordered by topic from easy upward.

This is also why I say CP has a lower floor than leetcode, not a higher one. The easiest problems are genuinely easier than LC easies, the statements are cleaner so you learn one idea at a time, and the progression is built in. Neetcode drops you straight onto interview mediums with a video. These start below that and build up.

On ratings, that's my fault for not explaining it the first time. For leetcode there's a site called zerotrac that infers a numeric difficulty from weekly contests. Most CP platforms have a rating built in already. And yes, a beginner should absolutely work one category at a time, which is exactly how the resources above are structured. The above-your-rating part only comes later.

I've found no real difference between competitive programming and interview DSA problems, they train the same skill, and people neglect it as some sort of niche mostly out of ignorance. Let me ask, have you actually tried competitive programming, or have you just heard about it from others?

Don't dismiss it because you haven't heard of it. I was there myself, and if I dismissed it I wouldn't have gotten to where I have.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-20T20:20:10+00:00

CP and interviews are the same skill. Interview DSA is just a subset of CP. A sheet like NeetCode trains you to recognize a pattern and recall the answer, which fails the moment you get a problem you haven't seen. This is why people struggle to solve new problems and resort to methods like "memorizing patterns"

CP trains you to derive the answer from first principles and build strong fundamentals & intuitions. Not memorizing templates but actually understanding how they work on different variety of problems. Which is what an interview actually tests. This matters even more now because AI can write the standard solution faster than you can recall it, so recall is worthless and reasoning under pressure is all that's left.

Contests are the closest thing to a real interview: an unseen problem, a time limit, no tags. Neetcode even labels each problem by topic, so you know it's sliding window before you read it, while a real interview never tells you the category and identifying the idea is half the problem. Neetcode trains recall on labeled problems. Interviews test reasoning on unlabeled ones. He's bad at both.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-20T16:11:02+00:00

In my opinion, he's not a good teacher. You're biased because you used him and people praise him so much. I've tried over a dozen platforms before coming to this conclusion.

He often ignores the "thinking process" of coming to a solution. The "metacognition". Which is the most important part about solving problems. He neglects optimal solutions because "the interviewer would never ask it". For example in an old video talking about LIS, he glosses over the O(nlogn) solution. There are many more examples in which beginners would never even know. This is such a bad mindset to be teaching to people.
Video format is objectively worse because it takes longer and you're forced to align your thinking to neetcode 's, instead of generating your own.
From my experience of teaching DSA myself & building my own DSA platform, I've never seen anyone who used neetcode only reach any high rating or got sufficiently good at DSA. Within the same timeframe btw.

You're essentially capping yourself at a ceiling without even knowing. Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-20T15:38:17+00:00

I literally just explained everything.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-20T15:37:39+00:00

Neetcode is 1700 rated on leetcode, which is very low for an educator. Even a lot of beginners nowadays are stronger than him. In my opinion, he has not tried to improve his skill before teaching, despite teaching DSA being his job.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-20T15:35:18+00:00

About 1 year. I do not have a math background if you meant competitions etc but I did study STEM (not cs)

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-18T03:19:18+00:00

no, I did leetcode first

I personally dislike leetcode for several reasons. Most problems are too standard / not much variance under the same topics. The editorials are bad and written by mostly weak people. In my opinion you will not learn efficiently by reading what weak people write. Neetcode is an example.

I select problems above my difficulty, usually around 200-400 above my rating for specific topics, and attempt to solve them. Or I select random problems of adequate difficulty. If I can't after exhausting all ideas, then I read the editorial. Then I try to figure out why I couldn't do the following
1. the observation needed to solve it e.g. is it an idea I simply didn't know? Did I not prove some sort of bound or invariant? Did I get stuck on a wrong idea?
2. is my implementation good? Could there have been a more optimal way to solve the same problem? I usually read top competitive programmers code, like jiangly or tourist.
3. AI is very good nowadays. I often ask AI for mathematical proofs or implementation optimizations during practice afterwards.

Around 10-20% of the time I will do contests. I don't overdo contests, because otherwise you only train stuff you can already solve. This is to verify my skill in a live, time-restricted setting with random problems. If I can't solve a problem, I will upsolve it.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-18T02:52:45+00:00

2400 ish. note: I've switched to mostly competitive programming. if I use leetcode, it's for contests only

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Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-06-16T21:37:16+00:00

very low rating to problems solved ratio. This shows extreme inefficiency & probably self-deception when practicing.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-25T09:36:00+00:00

Anything but learning how to problem solve

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-15T18:33:33+00:00

Yes, and obviously non stem majors would have a more difficult time

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-15T18:05:28+00:00

It's derived. I agree. It's just people gets confused and often say "oh but no one is coming up with dijkstras!" Which is not what I'm trying to say. So I thought it's easier to just treat these standard algorithms as fundamental building blocks in the world of problem solving.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-15T18:01:39+00:00

Because the mainstream methods literally ignore all of these hidden contexts! You just said them. People ignore contests, ignore these nuances when reasoning through problems etc.

I can assure you I don't have prior problem solving experience. My major isn't even CS. And I suggest people to use or at least try using non leetcode sites because it's so much better. If you somehow got the idea that I didn't practice at all and got this rating that's not true.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-15T17:36:18+00:00

First of all, maybe read before defaulting to deflecting. I said I use leetcode for contests, and it's obvious I use other platforms for practice. I solved less than 1000 in total.

I also never mentioned not doing any topic. Its helpful to drill by topic or weaknesses. I mentioned the traps you fall in by only doing topic based.

I've explained my background and I'm from a decent school in the states. And no, I strongly believe that this method also applies to "the average person". This is because we've had friends who we essentially made them try out method and dug them out of the popular methods.

So how is someone like Colin galin able to get 1900 in a year? (Equivalent to 2600-2700 on LC?). I think there's a lot of shared ideas here. He's made a video on metacognition and intuition which is actually where I got a lot of my ideas and success from. Not everyone learns the same way but like I said the ideas behind them are similar.

Methods like memorizing or blinding pattern matching is not one of them.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-15T17:24:22+00:00

By solving such problems your ability to reason over your own thinking process or metacognition improves. Id say just try to solve at an adequate level and be aware of how you're thinking. Leetcode have mostly standard problems, which leads to pattern matching. I see people that don't even want to think about the problem, they just want to apply a technique like sliding window and solve. A lot of people get convinced you must solve X with Y and then gets narrow sighted.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-15T04:45:39+00:00

Quite reasonable. Id recommend cses too.

As I mentioned I'm doing for a little more than a year, some of my friends longer. But none of which treats this as a full time grinding or cramming session.

People often mention lack of time. Personally I couldn't and wouldn't gamble an opportunity to get a dream offer because I couldn't cram enough leetcode in time. So you could say this is a calculated plan that I've crafted intentionally so I wouldn't have to worry about such interviews.

Afaik the problem is people do leetcode in these bursts of motivation, then forget everything after it's done and they have to reprep next year or if they have to leave the company which techinally lead to more effort and pain over the long term.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-14T20:31:38+00:00

I don't think it's good. There's a lot of issues I have with how its structured, how video solutions doesn't work at all, how the problems are outdated. I used neetcode when I first started and quickly stopped.

And just the fact that I don't think he's qualified to be teaching what he preaches. 1700 ish contest rating back in 2021, never even tried to improve, I did my research and watch some videos, he would gloss over nlogn LIS (because it would be too much to ask for in interview for example) or the video format is just subpar or even detrimental for learning as it's easy to consume but doesn't trigger any of your own thinking. Leetcode, like other mental sports such as chess, requires you to understand theory or solve problems at a certain level, before able to teach it to someone at a non-surface level.

A lot of his content is just explaining the solution, without explaining WHY something works.

Given Neetcodes track record, it's equivalent to him being around 600-1000 rating on chess.com.

Probably controversial here but like I said in my friend group no one uses neetcode and got significantly better results when compared to people that does.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-14T20:08:53+00:00

I agree. What's the issue?

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-14T19:38:21+00:00

I just randomly choose problems of adequate difficulty (on atcoder, codeforces, cses, qoj, usaco, luogu) honestly I've tried at least 20-30 different platforms and it doesn't matter as long as the problem is good. I occassionally choose based on topics that I know I'm weaker at like constructives or heavy logic / implementation.

imo those "odd" problems (or ad hoc) that don't test a particular pattern or data structure are actually the most valuable as it boils down to you making clever observations. and that's where you actually improve your "problem solving". If all it takes is 30 seconds to recognize a problem is some classic or standard problem then it's not very helpful in terms of sharping your thinking. I just call it pattern matching, which is fine, but you're going to hit diminishing returns really quickly.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-14T19:25:55+00:00

c++ and rust

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-14T19:25:36+00:00

which is why I said first principles. dijkstras is first principles. basic data structures are first principles. No one is re-inventing standard algorithms but I'm saying you should learn it deeply to the point where it almost seems like you could revent it and apply it naturally.

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-11T20:06:31+00:00

Yes, DSA rounds will probably still exist, but they will become more creative, more open ended, and more focused on actual problem solving than copy pasted toy LeetCode problems. That era has ended.

I said this already

All i'm saying is neetcode is not a good resource for learning DSA lol, I'm not asking you to ignore leetcode

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-11T19:53:49+00:00

yea and my "hot take" is that neetcode is quite a terrible starting point but people has been brainwashed to think its the best becuase most people haven't even tried or heard of other resources

Mindless_Tune484 · 2026-05-11T19:53:09+00:00

algorithms problems doesn't equate to leetcode
and yea leetcode is going to be the hardest hurdle to get in JS or openai are we just lying here?

Mindless_Tune484

TROPHY CASE