Firstly, I want to thank everyone in the community who contribute. I learned a lot of lessons here, one of which is sharing helps to learn and understand the true value of community, and kudos to guys who made it to end with an offer.

A little long post, so please bear with me and my English.

Little Background of myself :

I have 3.10 years of experience being a full-stack developer in a startup (India). I learned to build stuff but it was not satisfying due to the lack of proper mentorship, user-base that I expected from a startup being a fresher during my joining.

My only goal was to secure a job in a decent MNC/startup.

I’m from a CS background and thought I would be ready within 3-4 months. Oh Boy! I was so wrong that it never really an end and we are never completely prepared. I started preparing for coding interviews last year (June14’2020), not with the hopes of cracking a FAANG(M) but to be able to secure a job in a decent company.

Plan and Execution:

Phase-1 : (June’20 - Sept’20)

I started out with daily challenges. It was pretty hard at the start but I didn’t get demotivated and knew it was going to be awful at the start.

During this phase, I also learned that I need a push on imp concepts like graphs, DP, backtracking, etc. So after a month, I enrolled in a Problem-solving boot camp for 3 months. I didn’t want to lose the LeetCode garden, so I continued the daily challenge along with overwhelming assignments from the camp. The major mistake I did was looking into solutions right after reading the problem that I fail to find the solution. Eventually, I made my brain seek an answer in the best possible way i.e looking to the solution directly, hoping I would remember it in the interview.

Learnings:

Do not jump to solutions right after reading the problem statement. Make use of the gold mine (Discuss section of the problems)

Phase-2: (Oct’20 - Dec’20)

By this time, I solved close to 150 problems in LeetCode. After 3 months, I completed my Bootcamp where I became confident in the data structures and started to see progress in contests.

I concentrated completely on LeetCode doing daily challenges till Dec’20. I was able to solve easy, few medium problems but still felt I was lacking something.

Learnings:

Give interviews as soon as possible (at least once we get into pace). We will never be ready. Just take the leap of faith and start giving interviews to companies that are not on our priority list.

Phase-3 (Jan’21 - Feb’21)

By this time, I solved close to 350+ problems in leetcode and stopped doing daily challenges. I started giving interviews to low-priority companies and was able to perform better but the quality of questions being asked was not compared to the top-tier companies.

I knew that system design will be another hurdle. So I started preparing from famous Youtube channels, blogs, etc. Most of the resources I collected are from Discuss sections of leetcode.

But I started to notice that I’m slowly forgetting the previously solved problems. I even forgot the problems which I came up with solutions on my own.

Learnings:

Spaced Repetitive learning is very important. I can’t stress this enough. Due to lack of this, It felt like I’m back to the position where I started.

Phase-4(Mar’21-May’21)

I created a new profile to start fresh. This time I started journaling my progress in an excel sheet with a clean explanation and multiple approaches I came with. By may I solved back all the problems I previously solved. But this time I remember although that is a myth.

Learnings:

We can never remember all the problems we came across. the ideal strategy that worked for me is to be good with concepts/patterns and treat every problem as new and apply the concepts you know of. At first, it’s fine to filter topics but eventually one should come out of filtering the problems based on topics. The main learning lies in identifying the data structure and algorithm that fits.

Phase-5(June’21 - Now)

I randomly do the problems now and am still not a pro but definitely reached a lot ahead from where I started out a year back.

My current standings:

Phase-2:

Oracle(3rd round - no_offer), Amazon(OA - no_offer), Arcesium(OA - ghosted), Nagarro(offer), Accenture (offer)

phase-3:

Siemens(offer), ServiceNow(6th round completed at the time of writing this article and didn’t go well.) and offers from a couple of other startups(unicorn) and tier-2 MNCs.

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Into the future,

l will continue my preparation and try leetcode contests. I hope I’ll someday work at FAANG level companies.

Thank you for being patient and hanging till the end. That is precisely precisely needs to crack the interviews.

I hope this helps someone who is on the verge of leaving the preparation. Be patient and continue with the preparation. Your future you will thank you.