The hard thing about leetcode for me isn't the problems, its being out of practice and having to grind it all over again, in case i get laid off again. You gotta keep practicing over and over again go be competitive. Its kind of like weightlifting,if you stop you lose strength,if you stop you forget how to solve some of these or you're not fast enough.
@@JoeTheisid rather be asked a coding question than some random quiz question on a library or database I used intensively for like 4 months and then mostly forgot about.
Yes…we need to fill our toolbox with techniques…and when we learn a large amount of techniques, we can apply them to questions problems…the techniques are in the solutions of our practice problems
The "1 year" practice period is really illuminating. Thanks for sharing that! I was always wondering how I can be good at it in 2-3 months, the job seeking window. Now I see. It is something that I need to persist over 1 year.
We know so much but in that moment of pressure our brain literally turns into a potato. The only way is to solve your questions with a timer or some external pressure. It can really help with increasing the pressure and also help us waste less time. if you cannot solve within the time period defined then go to the solution and do what the video says. Best of luck for your journey
Awesome!!! All software engineers ultimately got to this conclusion after a long period of struggle with LeetCode. You made the process more systematic
Studying solutions that are done well is actually good advice. I've spent actual days trying to figure out how to solve a problem that I didn't have the knowledge to do. Instead of looking things up I tried to solve it on my own which got me no where and was a waste of time in hind sight. Studying a good solution for the problem taught me so much more than pulling my hair out for hours.
This was actually helpful.When I first started,I thought I was just dumb enough and could not solve any questions. Nobody ever elaborated on the fact you stated that in the beginning, you need to learn the pattern and logic of the solution.That's why I just gave up in starting itself.But now I understood and started my journey to coding again . Thanks to you.
Leetcode is barely even coding. It's just using a programming language to solve riddles. If you want to learn coding, write some scripts and build applications.
Got my first job out of college with a small company (25 employees or less) and have been there ever since (6 years this May), and I've gotta say, I absolutely dread the day I need to move on to another job with how ridiculous the space has become with often very long and drawn out interviews asking you to do leetcode questions on a whiteboard when you'll likely never use it on the job itself. Especially now that it's not JUST the FANNG companies employing these types of interviews - it's bleeding into the smaller lesser known companies as well and it's just insane to think you need to do some shit like this for a year (while currently being employed working full time) to pass some weird gatekeeper-like interview. I've been a successful software dev for just about 6 years now and can only imagine the amount of people who would be fully qualified for the job they're interviewing for just to be passed over due to a lack of leetcode grinding to the point where it's not really even about skill as a programmer and more about memorization. Memorization does not make someone a good programmer. /endrant
- Focus on learning solutions to develop intuition quickly. (0:42) - Create two lists of easy and medium tree questions to learn common solutions first. (0:53) - Learn new patterns by studying solutions to questions you cannot solve. (1:23) - Practice solving questions with split attention on platforms like Pramp. (2:49) - Follow a roadmap to expose yourself to the most common questions and topics. (3:12) - Practice on lower-level building blocks extensively, as they form the interview question foundation. (3:33) - Solve questions not for speed but to pass interviews consistently. (4:46) - Research and practice questions posted by others, especially for specific companies. (5:17) - Prepare for hiring manager rounds by researching the company and their engineering challenges. (5:44) - Allow ample time for consistent practice to improve interview skills. (6:08)
Great video. These are actual good tips. I can tell you really went through this process. A lot of videos tell you they did 500+ questions but how you only need the top 120. Good job reflecting on your process and sharing what worked well for you
There it is. Someone finally said this and I want to say that it did really work for me. It is something i decided to do on my own while back ago and it helped a lot to get better at solving leetcode problems. Thank you for this video.
Wow I was shocked how few subs you have when i first saw. Love you energy! No typical youtuber bs saying pls comment and like etc but i did because of how authentic. It always seems like youtubers are having hidden incentives to sell a course etc (which is fine!) but there is always like a needy vibe behind a lot of things they say and it really just feels like you are just telling people really helpful advice for the sake of helping others! thanks!
The first part really answered a question I had. I'd been sitting in front of a problem that I knew was dynamic programming, I had absolutely no idea where to start and didn't know if I should just learn the solution to that and move on. Thanks.
Amazing video. Not only is the content great but the presentation also Learning PATTERNS is what I have realized is SUPER IMPORTANT because a lot of times for someone on the front end like my self it will be a strong array or map question and learning 2 pointers and sliding window is very important there as well as sub sections like static sliding window and dynamic sliding window What sucks about this though for a react dev Ike me is you also have to know react and a bunch of other front end related questions that have nothing to do with algorithms because some companies actually interview you for the work they do and if they don’t need high performance logic much then all that time spent on leetcode can be a negative if you didn’t also focus on the tech you program in daily
Everyone has their preferred way to prepare. If you are very short on time - this is indeed the best way. It’s the same approach you’d use to pass an exam. Study answers and should you encounter a similar enough question - you’ll be able to solve it based on your memory. The biggest downside here is that with each question, you are discarding an opportunity to improve general technical problem solving. My recommendation would be to try to solve the question yourself first, but time box it to 20-40 minutes. If you were not able to solve the question within time limit. Then look at solution, study it and find out what are the things that stood in the way of you getting the right answer - this is the important part. Did you get tunnel visioned on specific data structure? Did you not consider a multi pass approach? Did you make wrong assumption about optimal time complexity? Figure out a way to make sure this doesn’t derail you again. Then move on to the next question. With each new question your “weaknesses” shouldn’t be repeating themselves - if they do - it’s likely that you are not improving your general problem solving. You can still pass a lot of interviews based on good memory and pattern recognition. But ideally you want to train for more general problem solving too.
tbh hearing it took a year of practising for leetcode to get good is incredibly disheartening to hear as an experienced software engineer. not because it should take you less but rather because that is a HUGE waste of a person's free time that should be spent gaining real experience in a real job. it's a sad state of affairs that newcomers (and often seniors) must be subjected to such arbitrary tests just to land jobs doing fairly standard cookie cutter software development work on the other end.
Congratulations, you passed 3 hard leetcode questions, beat thousands of other candidates for the job. Your tasks you will be doing you may ask? You will be writing standard CRUD apis to serve a basic web application.
make sure you take enough and think enough tries to solve problem. If you cant still solve it, then move on to solution. If you just move on to solution, the thing is not every solution is same even the pattern is similar. The concept of approaching in each problem is different and thats the idea where you had to gain in hard way no matter what. Think enough and shake your brain enough to make your brain smarter
My problem is that I have a pattern where I grind leetcode for a few months, then I get busy with job/life or I lose interest as I am not actively interviewing. Again after a few months, I feel a bit guilty and I start again, back to square one. I have to solve easy questions and start the grind again. It's an infinite loop !
When I started leetcode a decade ago. I was trying to solve every problem in scratch without even knowing about data structures or algorithms. Then I realized there are people who spent their lives solving their problems and got phds and became famous. You cannot expect yourself to solve these kinds of problems in 30 minutes.
Thank you for giving me permission to look at solutions first as a beginner. I will say, it works. There are definitely concepts that stick after i see the problem a few times and it becomes more intuitive. I also will use chatgpt and go through the code line by line and ask, what does this code mean and why is it important. Understanding the why helps me a lot.
The advice was prob one of the best so far. After a year and a half in the industry i still cant solve a lot of them off the top of my head but its mostly the syntax and not the thought process of how I'm gonna get to the answer. My solurions are no where near elegant but i always have some idea how to start solving a problem. it just worries me whether or not id have to look up the exact syntax or how a particular class works.
I spent the first day totally sucking wondering if I'll ever be smart enought to solve complex problems (even though I took an easy one, I was rusty and tired). This has given me hope, I actually enjoy learning existing solutions, and we shouldn't try to re-build the wheel. Thank you!
In the 15 years I have been using RUclips this might actually be the one useful video when it comes to learning algorithms and data structures. When I was a junior I also fell in the pitfall of thinking I should be the one coming up with the brilliant solutions to every problem. It took me years to realize I just need to learn thought patterns from other people before I start solving complex issues. This video is exactly how I learned DSA. Don't be too hard on yourself.
One of things I don't see a lot but I feel is kinda important: to tinker with the solutions. This is how I approach: -> Try all approaches until I no longer can think of any way. If for the last 5-10 mins I can't think of a solution, I goto the solutions/discussions tab. The method name is mentioned in the heading of most solutions. Then, I tried to implement the same method on that question on my own. If I still can't figure it out, I view the code in the solutions tab. Copy-Paste, understand the code, dry-run and then tinker with the code. Tinkering is kinda important because it forces u to understand the code before changing anything. Even for questions I am not able to solve in contests, I do the same. It helped me no idea if it works for anybody else.
I got my software engineer job and didn’t need to learn a single leetcode question. Now I don’t need leetcode at all because I have real world complex projects to showcase
To each their own but I prefer honing problem solving skills by always going in blind and staying blind. I don't even look at what other people did after I solved it. It's just about what you want to get out of it. Neither is right or wrong. Great video explaining what he prefers and how to be effective doing it. Also I don't think looking at solutions is a controversial take. I assumed that's what 99% of people did when they "grind leetcode". Try projecteuler instead!
I’m really happy I live in Europe and here in general companies don’t do this leetcode bullshit when hiring. The most important skill is understanding the requirements and raising concerns if they are problematic. Solving Leetcode problems will not help you with that.
I am a beginner and i just started learning DSA. Even though i am just at Big O, this video is going to help me a lot since this is how i originally planned my study schedule, so thank you for making it more clear for me! I know i have a long way to go but am all for it ✨🎄If you have any tips or motivation, kindly send me some ✨
almost 30 questions in and I am tired, frustrated and at a all time low energy level. Just doing this day after day alone by myself with no one to talk to in hopes that I will get a job in this market, sigh. I dont know. Feel so tired. That and sleep is so bad sometimes.
I understand your recommendation of learning the solution first is an effective and faster way to level up.. however, trying to solve the problems on your own in the beginning and spending more time thinking about the problem and ways to solve.. will improve ones fundamental understanding and lay a solid foundation for the long term.. but your strategy I think can be followed for some one with a short deadline
As a beginner I took things differently, signed up and did contests on codeforces. I wasn't focussed on solving for rating but solving for developing skills. Somedays I don't even care submitting but trying to find ways to come up with solutions. As days went by the intuition came easier and these days I submit 3-4 solutions on div2. So, i guess things work different for each of us.
This is actually how we learn most things in school. It took millennia for simple mathematical concepts to form our basic elementary curriculum. It would be infeasible to expect kids to come up with these concepts by themselves.
I started leetcode just now and managed to solve half of blind 75 and around total of 100 problem and I feel like complete begineer still but I definitely can see myself improving
I've also started to crack interviews at this point and what you said is relatable. It took me also about a year to get good enough to crack DSA interviews with confidence but then there's LLD and HLD also to consider. That's more or less just dependent on learning some questions.
I guess when we start working on large projects our debugging and problem solving skills make our life easier so big companies are always going to rely on DSA and LLD , HLD solutions are completely depend on observation skills , experience and weather interviewer liked it or not 😏😏.
@@LetszGoo Also, note that sometimes, when a team is looking for a replacement, they might have additional requirements like Web, Android etc along with DSA and the other stuff. This is not the norm though. When companies start to hire in bulk again (hopefully next year), they'll hire in a more generic way. Nowadays, the replacement thing is most common.
@@aadityakiran_s how do you get interviews? ☠️ Due to recession not many companies are even hiring and I have done only 2 interviews so far... Also, I am more focused towards backend dev, so can you suggest how I can land interviews on this :(
Thanku so much the best ever video about competitive programming Tips:- -first of all learning question approach -recognising the patterns ........ THANKU FOR UPLOADING THIS TYPE OF CONTENT .
After getting a job it is hard to remain in touch with practicing, i lost touch with that and when i open i get scared to even see my own solutions ,it feels how in the world did i even think of that 😂
I really like programming. Building and learning new stuff. But I really hate when it's more about resolving useless things just to show I know something and trying new tactics to get hired, hacking the system of jobs, thinking about Linkedin, selling myself, networking, interviews, memorizing sintaxe. This makes me feel really miserable. I don't feel like a person anymore, but I feel like nothing more than a product.
It was really nice , but one thing he missed was giving weekly and biweekly contest regularly . Belive me !! That's really really important. If you are able to solve 3 to 4 questions regularly in each contest then you are ready to crack any interview.
I've done a lot of interviews from the hiring side, I hate leetcode style questions because for the vast majority of jobs, you are not doing anything like leetcode questions. It's actually quite boring in comparison. And the leetcoders tend to be good at interviews, but when it comes to the actual job, that is all that matters at the end of the day, so focus on that.
Learning solutions is not necessarily the best nor the funnest way to get good. If you have to land a job in a month, sure, you can reach average in just that time. But if you want to excell you have to constantly practice finding new patterns by yourself. So that when there is no answer on stack exchange for your very specific problem, you are confident that you will come up with it and post it yourself. This is what sepparates a genius mathematician from a phd, the phd will solve almost any problem because he is familiar with the patterns, but the genius even if not quick at solving known problems will come up with solutions for new ones.
Personal opinion, leetcode is like brute force solution to passing interviews....a better way will be understanding the patterns.....once you do you wont really tell btwn easy , medium or hard questions....they will all be the same/easy. Bonus it will be easy to remember and also easy for you to explain your solution which most of the times the interviews are looking for.
A lot of people are grinding leetcode for months, but are stuck between 1400-1500 contest ratings. Some tips work and we should be flexible and adaptable to trying out new ways if the traditional ain't producing results. I hope you understood what i said bro.
Absolutely agree, and I'd add that I saw a much better progress curve when I practiced the way I mentioned, compared to investing hours into solving new questions. Consistency is a must, but once you are consistent, make sure you're also consistently practicing in the best way possible.
Great video. A little fast-paced for me, but I suppose it's especially appreciated by those that play youtube at 1.5x. And thanks for not trying to teach us how to use youtube.
take it a bit of a step further and write unit tests for the coding challenge solutions. Ask chatGPT if you need help doing it but that helps get a better understanding of the logic. You can even set a breakpoint on the unit test and run the debugger and step thru the method under test and watch it all unfold
honestly companies having leetcode as a reason you get in or not is just so dumb lol everyone knows solving a problem can take some time and it requires some searching and learning to be done I was lucky enough to land in a company that just cared about my skillset and tested it through in my opinion easier and more verifiable means had software engineer write some code and my job was to correct it as well as explain keywords behind it. Then we both sat on the solution later discussed my private projects. Then I had an app to do and send them it back and bam just like that got a job.
@dave How to overcome the part you mentioned where in the first 5 minutes we know whether I will be able to solve or not. It happens a lot. It's very tough to think of a new solution/new approach after 5 minutes as the pressure to speak correct things keep on building up.
As a beginner, what is a better use of my time. Building practical projects to develop and showcase real skills, or grind leet code. I find memoizing toy solutions to toy problems tedious and unpleasant. I love building things that are usefull to people. I just want to know how necessary this is
You don't really need to invest a lot of time to make projects to put on your resume, but you do need to invest a lot of time to get good at interviews.
I also started leetcoding and it's fun. I always try to solve questions on my own before looking at answer, but it is really frustrating when you get TLE and have to look for optimal solution
Dave's point about not worrying about optimal solution is true, but if you are hitting TLE it means your solution is probably a bit too "brute force" (with rare exceptions). I understand the frustration, but I would suggest you reframe the TLE. What it means is you have a good grasp of the basics of the problem, as you (presumably) have a solution that could be used. Now you are very well prepared to understand other ways of attacking the same problem. Look at the other people's solutions or the Editorial solutions, and enjoy learning from them. And, as Dave said, do not obsess about the absolute most efficient solution. Find a good solution that seems like a useful pattern, that would not be difficult to apply to other similar problems. Study that one well.
As a student just coming out of college I dont think its fair to be thrown leetcode problems for an entry level position. Its about what you can learn not memorizing problems under a timed clock. That being said I gotta play the game so after bombing an assessment for USAA I need to learn how to do the OA just to get in the door.
Landing an interview at big tech companies is not that hard actually because they hire a lot. With that said, when you don't have experience, it's hard, there is more supply and less demand. If you're at that stage, check this out: ruclips.net/video/k8NjwYNcDLM/видео.htmlsi=NKJM8JtkvHfSKj19
“I wasnt bad, I was just getting started” needed that! Thank you!
The hard thing about leetcode for me isn't the problems, its being out of practice and having to grind it all over again, in case i get laid off again. You gotta keep practicing over and over again go be competitive. Its kind of like weightlifting,if you stop you lose strength,if you stop you forget how to solve some of these or you're not fast enough.
True, though you will ramp up more quickly after the first time you went through the prep
It's almost like this shit has nothing to do with the actual job 🙄
just do 1 problem every or so day that's should be enough and shouldn't take a lot of time
@@JoeTheisid rather be asked a coding question than some random quiz question on a library or database I used intensively for like 4 months and then mostly forgot about.
@@JoeTheisjust a basis for coding basically, like a benchmark. the only issue is it’s ALL boring math and science questions
Learn Solutions is the Best Advice as an Beginner
Yes, and then try to solve a few too!
This seems the right approach For beginners. 🙂
@@Blackoutfor10days yes really, there is a reason why we are preparing
We don't need to invent the wheel from scratch
Yes…we need to fill our toolbox with techniques…and when we learn a large amount of techniques, we can apply them to questions problems…the techniques are in the solutions of our practice problems
Worst advice. Solve until you solved it, and then compare to the solution.
The "1 year" practice period is really illuminating. Thanks for sharing that!
I was always wondering how I can be good at it in 2-3 months, the job seeking window. Now I see. It is something that I need to persist over 1 year.
Yup, if you want to consistently reach that bar in interviews, you just got to increase the time horizon for practice
i just did a interview today, got smashed by an easy question of hash map... Nervousism is your worst enemy for sure
We know so much but in that moment of pressure our brain literally turns into a potato. The only way is to solve your questions with a timer or some external pressure. It can really help with increasing the pressure and also help us waste less time. if you cannot solve within the time period defined then go to the solution and do what the video says. Best of luck for your journey
Awesome!!!
All software engineers ultimately got to this conclusion after a long period of struggle with LeetCode. You made the process more systematic
Indeed! I used to be caught up on investing hours into a question until I solve it and seeing much slower progress.
Studying solutions that are done well is actually good advice. I've spent actual days trying to figure out how to solve a problem that I didn't have the knowledge to do. Instead of looking things up I tried to solve it on my own which got me no where and was a waste of time in hind sight. Studying a good solution for the problem taught me so much more than pulling my hair out for hours.
This was actually helpful.When I first started,I thought I was just dumb enough and could not solve any questions. Nobody ever elaborated on the fact you stated that in the beginning, you need to learn the pattern and logic of the solution.That's why I just gave up in starting itself.But now I understood and started my journey to coding again . Thanks to you.
You got this!
Leetcode is barely even coding. It's just using a programming language to solve riddles. If you want to learn coding, write some scripts and build applications.
@@brandongregori995 true but if you want a career as a software engineer , leetcode is a necessary step in the interview process
Got my first job out of college with a small company (25 employees or less) and have been there ever since (6 years this May), and I've gotta say, I absolutely dread the day I need to move on to another job with how ridiculous the space has become with often very long and drawn out interviews asking you to do leetcode questions on a whiteboard when you'll likely never use it on the job itself. Especially now that it's not JUST the FANNG companies employing these types of interviews - it's bleeding into the smaller lesser known companies as well and it's just insane to think you need to do some shit like this for a year (while currently being employed working full time) to pass some weird gatekeeper-like interview. I've been a successful software dev for just about 6 years now and can only imagine the amount of people who would be fully qualified for the job they're interviewing for just to be passed over due to a lack of leetcode grinding to the point where it's not really even about skill as a programmer and more about memorization. Memorization does not make someone a good programmer. /endrant
- Focus on learning solutions to develop intuition quickly. (0:42)
- Create two lists of easy and medium tree questions to learn common solutions first. (0:53)
- Learn new patterns by studying solutions to questions you cannot solve. (1:23)
- Practice solving questions with split attention on platforms like Pramp. (2:49)
- Follow a roadmap to expose yourself to the most common questions and topics. (3:12)
- Practice on lower-level building blocks extensively, as they form the interview question foundation. (3:33)
- Solve questions not for speed but to pass interviews consistently. (4:46)
- Research and practice questions posted by others, especially for specific companies. (5:17)
- Prepare for hiring manager rounds by researching the company and their engineering challenges. (5:44)
- Allow ample time for consistent practice to improve interview skills. (6:08)
Great video. These are actual good tips. I can tell you really went through this process. A lot of videos tell you they did 500+ questions but how you only need the top 120. Good job reflecting on your process and sharing what worked well for you
Thank you so much!
There it is. Someone finally said this and I want to say that it did really work for me. It is something i decided to do on my own while back ago and it helped a lot to get better at solving leetcode problems. Thank you for this video.
Amazing, thank you!
This was much needed,I was feeling guilty in checking out solutions without knowing anything
Been there!
Same here 😔
Wow I was shocked how few subs you have when i first saw. Love you energy! No typical youtuber bs saying pls comment and like etc but i did because of how authentic. It always seems like youtubers are having hidden incentives to sell a course etc (which is fine!) but there is always like a needy vibe behind a lot of things they say and it really just feels like you are just telling people really helpful advice for the sake of helping others! thanks!
The first part really answered a question I had. I'd been sitting in front of a problem that I knew was dynamic programming, I had absolutely no idea where to start and didn't know if I should just learn the solution to that and move on. Thanks.
Amazing video. Not only is the content great but the presentation also
Learning PATTERNS is what I have realized is SUPER IMPORTANT because a lot of times for someone on the front end like my self it will be a strong array or map question and learning 2 pointers and sliding window is very important there as well as sub sections like static sliding window and dynamic sliding window
What sucks about this though for a react dev Ike me is you also have to know react and a bunch of other front end related questions that have nothing to do with algorithms because some companies actually interview you for the work they do and if they don’t need high performance logic much then all that time spent on leetcode can be a negative if you didn’t also focus on the tech you program in daily
Thank you!
Everyone has their preferred way to prepare. If you are very short on time - this is indeed the best way. It’s the same approach you’d use to pass an exam. Study answers and should you encounter a similar enough question - you’ll be able to solve it based on your memory.
The biggest downside here is that with each question, you are discarding an opportunity to improve general technical problem solving. My recommendation would be to try to solve the question yourself first, but time box it to 20-40 minutes. If you were not able to solve the question within time limit. Then look at solution, study it and find out what are the things that stood in the way of you getting the right answer - this is the important part. Did you get tunnel visioned on specific data structure? Did you not consider a multi pass approach? Did you make wrong assumption about optimal time complexity? Figure out a way to make sure this doesn’t derail you again. Then move on to the next question.
With each new question your “weaknesses” shouldn’t be repeating themselves - if they do - it’s likely that you are not improving your general problem solving. You can still pass a lot of interviews based on good memory and pattern recognition. But ideally you want to train for more general problem solving too.
This video is one of the best videos I have ever seen on how to properly prep for leetcode style interviews (I passed Google interviews)
The best leetcode guidance I have ever seen. Thanks!
tbh hearing it took a year of practising for leetcode to get good is incredibly disheartening to hear as an experienced software engineer. not because it should take you less but rather because that is a HUGE waste of a person's free time that should be spent gaining real experience in a real job. it's a sad state of affairs that newcomers (and often seniors) must be subjected to such arbitrary tests just to land jobs doing fairly standard cookie cutter software development work on the other end.
It’s like practicing for SAT over actually learning something in a meaningful way.
Standardized testing just be like that
Very well put.
Congratulations, you passed 3 hard leetcode questions, beat thousands of other candidates for the job.
Your tasks you will be doing you may ask?
You will be writing standard CRUD apis to serve a basic web application.
This is very helpful. I'm in the quantity phase of learning. I've "solved" 45 leetcodes and about 3 of them by myself (easys).
make sure you take enough and think enough tries to solve problem.
If you cant still solve it, then move on to solution.
If you just move on to solution, the thing is not every solution is same even the pattern is similar. The concept of approaching in each problem is different and thats the idea where you had to gain in hard way no matter what.
Think enough and shake your brain enough to make your brain smarter
Where to start? I'm a complete beginner
My problem is that I have a pattern where I grind leetcode for a few months, then I get busy with job/life or I lose interest as I am not actively interviewing. Again after a few months, I feel a bit guilty and I start again, back to square one. I have to solve easy questions and start the grind again. It's an infinite loop !
So don't stop.
This is such a smart approach!
When I started leetcode a decade ago. I was trying to solve every problem in scratch without even knowing about data structures or algorithms. Then I realized there are people who spent their lives solving their problems and got phds and became famous. You cannot expect yourself to solve these kinds of problems in 30 minutes.
But the companies do expect 😂
Thank you for giving me permission to look at solutions first as a beginner. I will say, it works. There are definitely concepts that stick after i see the problem a few times and it becomes more intuitive.
I also will use chatgpt and go through the code line by line and ask, what does this code mean and why is it important. Understanding the why helps me a lot.
The advice was prob one of the best so far. After a year and a half in the industry i still cant solve a lot of them off the top of my head but its mostly the syntax and not the thought process of how I'm gonna get to the answer. My solurions are no where near elegant but i always have some idea how to start solving a problem. it just worries me whether or not id have to look up the exact syntax or how a particular class works.
I spent the first day totally sucking wondering if I'll ever be smart enought to solve complex problems (even though I took an easy one, I was rusty and tired). This has given me hope, I actually enjoy learning existing solutions, and we shouldn't try to re-build the wheel. Thank you!
In the 15 years I have been using RUclips this might actually be the one useful video when it comes to learning algorithms and data structures. When I was a junior I also fell in the pitfall of thinking I should be the one coming up with the brilliant solutions to every problem. It took me years to realize I just need to learn thought patterns from other people before I start solving complex issues. This video is exactly how I learned DSA. Don't be too hard on yourself.
Thank you for sharing!
What a brilliant way to look at the situation. Love it, I am doing this brother.
Starting the leetcode grind tomorrow with advice based from this video! Might update this thread weekly cuz why not.
You got this, and looking forward for the update!
Been 10 months dude drop an update
bro gave up 💀
WOW just WOW love it The quality of the video is so good tysm god bless you brother!!!!
Thank you so much!
This is actually such a good video. Thank you!
One of things I don't see a lot but I feel is kinda important: to tinker with the solutions.
This is how I approach:
-> Try all approaches until I no longer can think of any way. If for the last 5-10 mins I can't think of a solution, I goto the solutions/discussions tab. The method name is mentioned in the heading of most solutions. Then, I tried to implement the same method on that question on my own.
If I still can't figure it out, I view the code in the solutions tab. Copy-Paste, understand the code, dry-run and then tinker with the code. Tinkering is kinda important because it forces u to understand the code before changing anything.
Even for questions I am not able to solve in contests, I do the same. It helped me no idea if it works for anybody else.
Thanks for sharing!
I got my software engineer job and didn’t need to learn a single leetcode question. Now I don’t need leetcode at all because I have real world complex projects to showcase
To each their own but I prefer honing problem solving skills by always going in blind and staying blind. I don't even look at what other people did after I solved it.
It's just about what you want to get out of it. Neither is right or wrong. Great video explaining what he prefers and how to be effective doing it.
Also I don't think looking at solutions is a controversial take. I assumed that's what 99% of people did when they "grind leetcode".
Try projecteuler instead!
I’m really happy I live in Europe and here in general companies don’t do this leetcode bullshit when hiring. The most important skill is understanding the requirements and raising concerns if they are problematic. Solving Leetcode problems will not help you with that.
Thank you for your content. I see bunch of videos from time to time. not so many of them feel like informative and well thought. wish you best!
Most honest video ,I have seen till now
I am a beginner and i just started learning DSA. Even though i am just at Big O, this video is going to help me a lot since this is how i originally planned my study schedule, so thank you for making it more clear for me! I know i have a long way to go but am all for it ✨🎄If you have any tips or motivation, kindly send me some ✨
You got this!
bro genuinely thank you !!
Useful advice! Thank you for sharing :))
almost 30 questions in and I am tired, frustrated and at a all time low energy level. Just doing this day after day alone by myself with no one to talk to in hopes that I will get a job in this market, sigh. I dont know. Feel so tired. That and sleep is so bad sometimes.
Best advice. Straight and to the point. Thanks!
Now This ! is Genuine Authentic Content ❤❤
I understand your recommendation of learning the solution first is an effective and faster way to level up..
however, trying to solve the problems on your own in the beginning and spending more time thinking about the problem and ways to solve..
will improve ones fundamental understanding and lay a solid foundation for the long term..
but your strategy I think can be followed for some one with a short deadline
This video really helped thank you so much. I feel confident again 🦍
You got this!
As a beginner I took things differently, signed up and did contests on codeforces. I wasn't focussed on solving for rating but solving for developing skills. Somedays I don't even care submitting but trying to find ways to come up with solutions. As days went by the intuition came easier and these days I submit 3-4 solutions on div2. So, i guess things work different for each of us.
Thanks a lot to give some of the best resources and advice .
This is actually how we learn most things in school. It took millennia for simple mathematical concepts to form our basic elementary curriculum. It would be infeasible to expect kids to come up with these concepts by themselves.
Really good video with great advice.
Great content and great editing skills!
Thank you so much! Polina is the creative powerhouse!
i needed this, thank you!
I started leetcode just now and managed to solve half of blind 75 and around total of 100 problem and I feel like complete begineer still but I definitely can see myself improving
I've also started to crack interviews at this point and what you said is relatable. It took me also about a year to get good enough to crack DSA interviews with confidence but then there's LLD and HLD also to consider. That's more or less just dependent on learning some questions.
hi, what is LLD and HLD stands for?
@@beng2620 low level and high level design
I guess when we start working on large projects our debugging and problem solving skills make our life easier so big companies are always going to rely on DSA and LLD , HLD solutions are completely depend on observation skills , experience and weather interviewer liked it or not 😏😏.
@@LetszGoo
Also, note that sometimes, when a team is looking for a replacement, they might have additional requirements like Web, Android etc along with DSA and the other stuff.
This is not the norm though. When companies start to hire in bulk again (hopefully next year), they'll hire in a more generic way. Nowadays, the replacement thing is most common.
@@aadityakiran_s how do you get interviews? ☠️ Due to recession not many companies are even hiring and I have done only 2 interviews so far...
Also, I am more focused towards backend dev, so can you suggest how I can land interviews on this :(
Your idea is what I was following.😊
Thanku so much the best ever video about competitive programming
Tips:-
-first of all learning question approach
-recognising the patterns ........
THANKU FOR UPLOADING THIS TYPE OF CONTENT .
After getting a job it is hard to remain in touch with practicing, i lost touch with that and when i open i get scared to even see my own solutions ,it feels how in the world did i even think of that 😂
Bruh here in India, even a low paying company asks DP as warm up questions.
I had ever interviewed in only 4 big companies and was always asked dp coding questions and once it was 2d dp. I know my luck is extremely hard.
Sound like something i wanna hear to satisfy myself so liking the vid
The editing is preventing me from finishing this. The key press sound effect, the captions, the memes…I’m feeling my brain implode.
I really like programming. Building and learning new stuff. But I really hate when it's more about resolving useless things just to show I know something and trying new tactics to get hired, hacking the system of jobs, thinking about Linkedin, selling myself, networking, interviews, memorizing sintaxe. This makes me feel really miserable. I don't feel like a person anymore, but I feel like nothing more than a product.
I feel you, but that's unfortunately what we are asked to do during interviews (but not all companies ask Leetcode!).
thanks Dave. it was really helpful
solid advice. wish i saw this 2 years ago
It was really nice , but one thing he missed was giving weekly and biweekly contest regularly . Belive me !! That's really really important. If you are able to solve 3 to 4 questions regularly in each contest then you are ready to crack any interview.
thank you for inspiration, great content!
Thank you!
Awesome bro! No I will never think experience programmer born with programming skills
I have saved this video. To always know what the process is. Algorithms have demoralized me a thousand times. But, I am up again.
You got this!
I've done a lot of interviews from the hiring side, I hate leetcode style questions because for the vast majority of jobs, you are not doing anything like leetcode questions. It's actually quite boring in comparison. And the leetcoders tend to be good at interviews, but when it comes to the actual job, that is all that matters at the end of the day, so focus on that.
Keep making quality content :) I have subscribed to your channel today.
Thank you :)
bro using machine learning on himself
Very helpful video, thank you
Yes! This is the correct way to learn.
Learning solutions is not necessarily the best nor the funnest way to get good. If you have to land a job in a month, sure, you can reach average in just that time. But if you want to excell you have to constantly practice finding new patterns by yourself. So that when there is no answer on stack exchange for your very specific problem, you are confident that you will come up with it and post it yourself. This is what sepparates a genius mathematician from a phd, the phd will solve almost any problem because he is familiar with the patterns, but the genius even if not quick at solving known problems will come up with solutions for new ones.
Personal opinion, leetcode is like brute force solution to passing interviews....a better way will be understanding the patterns.....once you do you wont really tell btwn easy , medium or hard questions....they will all be the same/easy. Bonus it will be easy to remember and also easy for you to explain your solution which most of the times the interviews are looking for.
Yea agreed, in the beginning just go straight to the solutions
There are no shortcut guys, stop your search for shortcuts instead do practise and be consistent❤
A lot of people are grinding leetcode for months, but are stuck between 1400-1500 contest ratings. Some tips work and we should be flexible and adaptable to trying out new ways if the traditional ain't producing results. I hope you understood what i said bro.
Everyone stucks , it dosent matter whose youtube videos they watched , but the thing that matter most is there self belief
months are nothing you need years. @@geekcurry5936
Absolutely agree, and I'd add that I saw a much better progress curve when I practiced the way I mentioned, compared to investing hours into solving new questions. Consistency is a must, but once you are consistent, make sure you're also consistently practicing in the best way possible.
@daveburji right! Practice smart, not hard.
me and my friend spends 2 hours to solve a medium question , but we don't even take any hint and we spend more than a day to solve a hard question.
actually good advice. great video.
This is very good advice. ❤
Great video. A little fast-paced for me, but I suppose it's especially appreciated by those that play youtube at 1.5x. And thanks for not trying to teach us how to use youtube.
Thank you!
Can we get your list of questions you used for each topic and the sub list of ones you learn the pattern to and others you tried to solve ?
www.techinterviewhandbook.org/algorithms/study-cheatsheet/
Highly recommend the lists in that link.
Just do the work and stop looking for a shortcut. There’s no shortcut.
take it a bit of a step further and write unit tests for the coding challenge solutions. Ask chatGPT if you need help doing it but that helps get a better understanding of the logic. You can even set a breakpoint on the unit test and run the debugger and step thru the method under test and watch it all unfold
vibe technician🔥
honestly companies having leetcode as a reason you get in or not is just so dumb lol
everyone knows solving a problem can take some time and it requires some searching and learning to be done
I was lucky enough to land in a company that just cared about my skillset and tested it through in my opinion easier and more verifiable means
had software engineer write some code and my job was to correct it as well as explain keywords behind it.
Then we both sat on the solution later discussed my private projects.
Then I had an app to do and send them it back and bam
just like that got a job.
It's just like Math. First you learn how to solve the problems then you get questions to practice
damn this is eye opener
@dave How to overcome the part you mentioned where in the first 5 minutes we know whether I will be able to solve or not. It happens a lot. It's very tough to think of a new solution/new approach after 5 minutes as the pressure to speak correct things keep on building up.
As a beginner, what is a better use of my time. Building practical projects to develop and showcase real skills, or grind leet code. I find memoizing toy solutions to toy problems tedious and unpleasant. I love building things that are usefull to people. I just want to know how necessary this is
You don't really need to invest a lot of time to make projects to put on your resume, but you do need to invest a lot of time to get good at interviews.
I also started leetcoding and it's fun.
I always try to solve questions on my own before looking at answer, but it is really frustrating when you get TLE and have to look for optimal solution
What’s TLE ?
Time Limit Exceeded, solution is potentially correct but not time optimized@@mattc9409
@@mattc9409time limit exceeded = TLE
Dave's point about not worrying about optimal solution is true, but if you are hitting TLE it means your solution is probably a bit too "brute force" (with rare exceptions).
I understand the frustration, but I would suggest you reframe the TLE. What it means is you have a good grasp of the basics of the problem, as you (presumably) have a solution that could be used. Now you are very well prepared to understand other ways of attacking the same problem. Look at the other people's solutions or the Editorial solutions, and enjoy learning from them.
And, as Dave said, do not obsess about the absolute most efficient solution. Find a good solution that seems like a useful pattern, that would not be difficult to apply to other similar problems. Study that one well.
As a student just coming out of college I dont think its fair to be thrown leetcode problems for an entry level position. Its about what you can learn not memorizing problems under a timed clock. That being said I gotta play the game so after bombing an assessment for USAA I need to learn how to do the OA just to get in the door.
And with AI, we never have to solve such problems in life ever again…
Edit: …outside interviews if course
hey! can you if possible share the list you've got where there are different questions of the same pattern
www.techinterviewhandbook.org/algorithms/study-cheatsheet/
Highly recommend the lists in that link.
Thanks for the wonderful rundown aiding DSA practise
Do you have the set of questions for the DS and A types for practise and test?
Thanks! Great vid!
I'm following the same strategy and it's very helpful 😄
Great to hear!
super helpful. thanks!
A lot of videos are about how to crack the interview. Can you make a video on what you need to land the FAANG interview in the first place?
Landing an interview at big tech companies is not that hard actually because they hire a lot.
With that said, when you don't have experience, it's hard, there is more supply and less demand. If you're at that stage, check this out: ruclips.net/video/k8NjwYNcDLM/видео.htmlsi=NKJM8JtkvHfSKj19
Wonderful insights 🎉🎉❤
Thank you so much!