As an established professional applying to Big tech, I kind of enjoyed LC prep.

It’s a rare opportunity to see other people solve the same problem as you, and I found I discovered quite a few interesting tricks, and was generally in awe of some people’s grasp of DP (I’m quite sure any DP whiteboard problem would stop me in my tracks).

The big learning for me was exactly the kinds of problems I knew I could solve versus those I knew I could not. I got two of the latter in my interviews, and immediately refocused on getting as much help as I could, which worked, and which I now would see as a positive signal as an interviewer. I’m always happy to hear “this is a problem of type X. I know I need to do Y and honestly I’ll probably need some help but let’s see what we can do”.