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Comment by hnisoss | Hacker News Reader

Yea but I also suck in 95% of FAANG like interviews since I'm very bad at leetcode medium/hard type of questions. It's just something that I never practiced. It's very tempting at this point to trow in my towel and just use some aid. No one cares about my intense career and the millions I helped my clients earn, all that matters (and sometimes directly affects comp rate) is how I do on the "coding task".

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> I suck in FAANG interviews... it's just something I never practiced.

Well, sounds like you know the solution. Or set your sights on a job that interviews a different way.

I think it's mostly leetcode "easy", anyway. Maybe some medium. Never seen a hard, except maybe from one smartass at Google (they were not expecting a perfect answer). Out of a dozen technical interviews, I don't think I've ever needed to know a data structure more exotic than a hash map or binary search tree.

The amount of deliberate practice required to stand out is probably not more than 10-20 hours, assuming you do actually have the programming and CS skills expected for a FAANG job. It's unlikely you need to do months of grinding.

If 20 hours of work was all that stood between me and half a million dollars a year, I'd consider myself pretty lucky.

Right. Almost any time somebody fails an interview it is not because of "very hard questions" but because they did not prepare properly in a sensible manner. People don't want whiteboarding, no programming questions, no mathematical questions, no fermi problems etc. which is plain silly and not realistic. One just needs to know the basics and simple applications of the above which is more than enough to get through most interviews. The key is not to feel overawed/overwhelmed with unknown notations/jargons which is what the actual problem is when people run away from big-O, DS/Algo, Recursion, application of Set Theory/Logic to Programming etc.

On the other hand, if 20 hours of leetcode practice is all that stands between you and half a million dollars a year, isn't that a pretty good indicator that the interview process isn't hiring based on your skills, talent and education, and instead on something you basically won't encounter in the workplace?

Agency?

10-20 hours is assuming you’re qualified for the job and just bad at leetcode. I think many qualified people could pass without studying, especially if they’re experienced in presenting or teaching.

If you’re totally unqualified, 20 hours of leetcoding won’t get you a job at Meta.

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