Hacker News Reader

Comment by dayvid | Hacker News Reader

A Neetcode or Leetcode subscription is one of the highest ROI things you can buy

The free version of LeetCode is more than enough to prepare for standard interviews.

Only mentioning this because I’ve seen some people stall their interview prep because they wanted to delay a LeetCode purchase until they felt they had enough time to prepare. You can get started right away with the free version.

Paid version is actually worth it (in ROI terms) but you can wait until later to buy it.

Starting is the most important part.

I resisted getting one out of principle till I realised this. Landed a job at FANG ~7 years ago after doing so and that $30 subscription has probably paid for itself 20,000x over at this point.

What is the principle?

Why would the subscription matter if you're not even getting interviews? The only relevant metric is your personal network, everything else is done.

Even referrals have to go through the interview process at every company I’ve ever worked for.

A lot of referrals would not make it past interviews because they thought they were going to be handed the job without question and came unprepared.

I currently work at a FAANG and applied through the normal site. I didn't apply for years until I attended a Google event and a recruiter just told me to apply on the website.

Ten years ago, maybe

I haven't job hunted in five years or so, but leetcode was omnipresent in my local market. I got some offers without leetcode but those jobs paid about half as much as the ones that required leetcoding.

What does prep look like now?

The market now is more about getting the interview rather than passing the interview.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com