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I don't know what the interviewers expect, but, generally, your "reward" for admitting you've seen the problem before is a harder question to answer. It seems more in the candidate's interest to pretend to work out the solution than to be honest.

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Yeah, I've been asked a lot of leetcode questions and always pause for a couple minutes before the answer hits me in a "brilliant" stroke of insight. This con works really well.

You need to get advanced level tactics like one of my past coworkers. He told me he would purposefully go down the wrong path with a problem - to only later have "divine inspiration" just before the interviewer would interrupt him and try to give him a hint... He would raise his hand and exclaim, "But, maybe!" And then promptly explain and solve the problem.

It was at this point that I realized I have no chance of getting into FAANG when I'm playing low-level tactics like just trying to just solve two medium problems in <40 minutes with the most optimal answer. :( (Or 1 hard problem in 30-35 minutes)

It would be more impressive if you solved it right away.

Nah it's too suspicious

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