Ask HN: How and when to look for internships and jobs?

I am currently a sophomore pursuing a CS degree from a mid-tier university in India. I have an intermediate level skill level in DevOps, although I would err to describe it more towards a basic level, (basically got into it through a selfhosting and Raspberry Pi addiction) and so on. Other than that, I am currently learning Rust, but I don't think I have the mental capacity needed for the Leetcode/CodeChef/HackerRank race, which is what seniors and batchmates alike are doing. On the other hand, some are waiting until pre-final year of the degree for internships, while some are working in the field part time already, so there's a host of confusing advice with regards to what to do when pursuing professional opportunities. So would appreciate some advice regarding that, and also, what is the method to look for jobs/work opportunities that are less focused/prone to the competitive programming grindset (the leetcode thing I mentioned earlier). Sorry if the post was incoherent, will rewrite if needed.