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.
Awesome!!! All software engineers ultimately got to this conclusion after a long period of struggle with LeetCode. You made the process more systematic
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
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.
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.
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.
- 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)
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
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!
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 !
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
I want to start applying next month, graduated last month. It's tough. I can't wait a year to start applying! guess ill just study for a few weeks and see what happens...
it shows how absolutely f*d the interview process is these days. cargo cult mentality and a lack of actual interviewing skill means most companies just copy what FAANG companies do.
@@sadscientist9995You should just apply ASAP. Any interviews you fail would be good practice. Job market is absolutely brutal right now, landing interviews is hard and takes a long time. You can spend some time applying / tweaking your resume/ reaching out to people on LinkedIn and you can continuing practicing Leetcode in between job interviews. Good luck!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 .
Thanks a lot this was very motivating for me who is a beginner at leetcoding and competitive programming, this is exactly how i learn when i have less time but needed someone to back me up
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Very interesting point that on the harder topics, the questions are actually easier because they are the more popular ones that you've seen before. Also, I can't believe you were never asked dynamic programming. I feel like people go crazy for DP problems. The one year of consistent practice couldn't be more true. I can't stand the people that say "I prepped leetcode for a few weeks and was able to pass interviews." These people are an anomaly and either exceptionally smart or have already put in months of the grind and are simply refreshing. This is a LONG process and if you want to make it into big tech, you need to really commit to it!
Agree! And yes, there was not a single interview that I was asked on a DP problem (from what I know, DP is not really common, Google's the main company I know that frequently asks questions on it)
@@natnaelabayneh7664 If you don't know the concepts either, watch a few videos on what are trees, arrays, etc. Then proceed to doing what I mentioned in the video for easy level questions.
Great video, but small suggestion about the background music, can it be little lower than your voice. Music is great but more interested to hear what you are saying.
Thanks...Great video! Fortunately this is what I've been doing too on Leetcode that helped me get better and consistent. ✌🏻 But I m not so much into dev, what would you suggest to me, how much does that impact? Should I focus strongly on dev as well?
“I wasnt bad, I was just getting started” needed that! Thank you!
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
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.
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!
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
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.
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 much needed,I was feeling guilty in checking out solutions without knowing anything
Been there!
Same here 😔
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).
- 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)
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!
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!
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
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.
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!
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!
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.
This is such a smart approach!
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.
What a brilliant way to look at the situation. Love it, I am doing this brother.
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!
WOW just WOW love it The quality of the video is so good tysm god bless you brother!!!!
Thank you so much!
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.
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
It took a year? I've got a week.
ur cooked
I want to start applying next month, graduated last month. It's tough. I can't wait a year to start applying! guess ill just study for a few weeks and see what happens...
What happened to you guys
it shows how absolutely f*d the interview process is these days. cargo cult mentality and a lack of actual interviewing skill means most companies just copy what FAANG companies do.
@@sadscientist9995You should just apply ASAP. Any interviews you fail would be good practice. Job market is absolutely brutal right now, landing interviews is hard and takes a long time. You can spend some time applying / tweaking your resume/ reaching out to people on LinkedIn and you can continuing practicing Leetcode in between job interviews. Good luck!
This is actually such a good video. Thank you!
This video really helped thank you so much. I feel confident again 🦍
You got this!
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!
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!
Best advice. Straight and to the point. Thanks!
Yea agreed, in the beginning just go straight to the solutions
Now This ! is Genuine Authentic Content ❤❤
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.
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!
Great content and great editing skills!
Thank you so much! Polina is the creative powerhouse!
bro genuinely thank you !!
Bruh here in India, even a low paying company asks DP as warm up questions.
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.
Most honest video ,I have seen till now
It's just like Math. First you learn how to solve the problems then you get questions to practice
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.
The editing is preventing me from finishing this. The key press sound effect, the captions, the memes…I’m feeling my brain implode.
vibe technician🔥
Your idea is what I was following.😊
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.
Thanks a lot to give some of the best resources and advice .
Very helpful video, thank you
I'm following the same strategy and it's very helpful 😄
Great to hear!
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!
solid advice. wish i saw this 2 years ago
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.
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.
Sound like something i wanna hear to satisfy myself so liking the vid
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.
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 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 :(
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 .
Keep making quality content :) I have subscribed to your channel today.
Thank you :)
Thanks a lot this was very motivating for me who is a beginner at leetcoding and competitive programming, this is exactly how i learn when i have less time but needed someone to back me up
You got this!
actually good advice. great video.
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.
I feel you, but that's unfortunately what we are asked to do during interviews (but not all companies ask Leetcode!).
i needed this, thank you!
thank you for inspiration, great content!
Thank you!
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.
Wonderful insights 🎉🎉❤
Thank you so much!
Oh my god! There is a lot of positive people's in this comments section 😢
❤❤❤
Love you guys
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.
Interesting video. I didn't feel when 6 minute 46 seconds Video is playing. it was so Smooth. To watch it
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
thanks Dave. it was really helpful
I liked the piramid tip! It's kind of good news
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
Yes! This is the correct way to learn.
Basically JEE preperation all over again, Well I know what is required then
TIME
This is very good advice. ❤
Very good video. Thank you
Thanks! Great vid!
bro's memorizing patterns💀
honestly, this game is sincerely stupid, it's basically pattern-recoginizing in the end. Unfortunately we all stuck with it.
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.
Getting a engineer job is tough now.
Really good advice
I am trying to follow the same path as u suggested but sometimes going off. Glad that you made a vid which tells me I am on the right path.
You got this!
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.
yup 100 percent learn the solutions. It's pattern recognition, not discovery.
You've split the data into the training and the test sets:).
lol
sometimes the secret requires breaking “rules”. the conventional advice of “practice first” led me nowhere
Wisdom right there! highly agree
Really valuable, nice.
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?
Great video
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.
Very interesting point that on the harder topics, the questions are actually easier because they are the more popular ones that you've seen before. Also, I can't believe you were never asked dynamic programming. I feel like people go crazy for DP problems. The one year of consistent practice couldn't be more true. I can't stand the people that say "I prepped leetcode for a few weeks and was able to pass interviews." These people are an anomaly and either exceptionally smart or have already put in months of the grind and are simply refreshing. This is a LONG process and if you want to make it into big tech, you need to really commit to it!
Agree! And yes, there was not a single interview that I was asked on a DP problem (from what I know, DP is not really common, Google's the main company I know that frequently asks questions on it)
Where to start? I'm a complete beginner
@@natnaelabayneh7664 If you don't know the concepts either, watch a few videos on what are trees, arrays, etc. Then proceed to doing what I mentioned in the video for easy level questions.
I have 2 years to get really good at leetcode
great advice
Great video, but small suggestion about the background music, can it be little lower than your voice. Music is great but more interested to hear what you are saying.
Thank you for the feedback!
Thanks.
Thanks...Great video! Fortunately this is what I've been doing too on Leetcode that helped me get better and consistent. ✌🏻
But I m not so much into dev, what would you suggest to me, how much does that impact? Should I focus strongly on dev as well?
Thank you! For your question, it depends what is asked on the interviews for the roles you're interviewing for