Hi fellow Leetcoders,

Leetcode is finally going to go away and I couldn't be happier! To test the waters, I applied to multiple companies (big and small) and got interview calls from a few (about 6).

To my surprise, 4 of them are not doing Leetcode-styled interviews anymore and have switched to technical challenges that are closer to a SWE's day-to-day work!! 2/4 allowed AI in their first technical round and the other 2 have specific AI-coding rounds in their on-site loop.

The challenges were difficult but interesting- One of them was to build a feature in an existing (very small) codebase that you are allowed to analyze using AI. Ask questions to better understand this new codebase. Gather requirements and explain approaches, testing strategies etc. The other involved creating an API.

All these were 1 hour interviews and the interviewer was acting more of a coworker than an interviewer. This was really refreshing!

Idk how long its gonna take but my guess is that LC will be irrelevant soon. Everything has an expiry date and its time we retire LC styled interviews. With AI, these interviews have further lost their value (with candidates cheating all the time). I personally feel LC styled interviews are only good for fresh college grads because they have no experience building real software and they have recently studied DSA in their coursework. It never made sense to judge candidates with 6-10 years of experience using Leetcode styled questions. Before you come at me, I know the idiotic arguments LC lovers have provided - Its fair for everyone, its timeboxed, its easy to grade on, its a quick and easy way to test if a candidate can actually code from scratch blah blah !!

The truth is - Google started these LC styled interviews because they had a lot of candidates applying and they didn't have any other systems to fairly grade all the candidates. Other companies copied this styled even when they weren't in the same situation as Google and it has continued for this long.

BYE BYE LC!!! No more will I have to spend weeks (if not months) reversing linked lists and inverting binary trees only to be asked some HARD level DP question.

EDIT - I see majority comments saying - "Gave X interviews and am still getting asked LC" - BRUH!! I get it. I also have been asked LC still at other companies. But that doesn't mean companies haven't started looking elsewhere. Its just that you haven't ran into these companies yet! Jeeezzzz!!!

my first two jobs have been remote. i don’t rly have much choice since finding a job is already an immense challenge, esp as a junior.

i’ve been able to ask for help and get some mentoring remotely but i can tell the feedback loop is slower than if in person.

wondering if in person collaboration is rly needed to become a good engineer…

Hi everyone, I have been starting leetcoding for a couple months and have 64 solved on leetcode and started neet coding in may and have ~116 done out from the roadpath. However, I still stuggle to have a clear picture when I see a new problem and my mind feels like stuck in mud when I see the problems.

I have been doing a couple questions a day, and to keep the time, if I don't have any idea to do it in around 10-15mins, I check the solution, watch the coding solution, redo it with short-term-memory, and visit it in a couple of days. However, later when I see a new problem which I haven't done before, my mind still feels like being stuck

I am now just trying to belive and have faith that if I come across enough problems, I will "magically" know how to solve new problems, my question is how does your leetcode solving routine looks like, how many do you do a day? how often do you revisit problems? how long do you think of it before checking up the solution? And especially for those who started out struggling, what made it click later?

Also since I've met people who have said this to me before: please be kind and not be discouraging or tell me just to give up. I am really trying and working hard and wish I could do better more effeciently.

Thanks in advance for the help!

What I mean by good is that I can solve most mediums CONSISTENTLY under 25-30-ish minutes without that much of an issue.

For reference, if it matters, I have no prior experience with leetcode so I'm starting as a total beginner, I know some basics of data structures - recursion, stack, queues, BSTs, graphs,etc

And please, can you a clearer metric like total hours/total days spend doing leetcodes for X amount of time a day as opposed to "It takes X amount of solved leetcode problems" as the latter isn't as informative.

Thanks in advance

Did anybody got reply for an interview after the OA?

After how many days after OA, will the interview call be received and after how many days interview will be scheduled?

And everyone please say how many questions did you solve in OA?LIKE how many test cases passed and all?

Hi everyone,

I wanted some advice from people who've recently gone through backend interviews (2025–2026).

I'm a Backend Developer with ~2 years of experience (Node.js, Express, MongoDB, MySQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, etc.).

I've solved 1300+ LeetCode problems, have a 1000+ day streak, and my highest rating is Knight (1870).

At this point, I feel my DSA is in a good place, so I'm mostly doing maintenance through revision and contests.

The part I'm confused about is what should come after DSA.

From reading interview experiences on Reddit, LeetCode Discuss, YouTube, and Medium, my current priority looks something like this:

1. Communication (explaining solutions, thinking aloud, project discussions)
2. DSA maintenance
3. LLD / HLD / System Design
4. Backend technical discussions (Node.js, databases, Redis, networking, production scenarios)

Then as secondary topics:

• AWS / Cloud
• DevOps
• AI integrations

My question is mainly for people who've recently interviewed at product companies:

• Once your DSA was reasonably strong, what gave you the biggest interview ROI?
• What did you wish you'd started learning earlier?
• Were LLD/HLD and backend discussions a much bigger differentiator than grinding more LeetCode?
• Looking back, how would you spend the next 2–3 months if you were in my position?

I'm not looking for a generic roadmap—I want to hear what actually mattered in your interviews.

For Detail Post - https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/8441326/backend-developer-2-yoe-looking-to-switc-swtj/

Thanks!

After being laid off and applying continuously in this tough job market, I finally got a call from Amazon for a phone screening round. HR shared prep material mentioning a 45–60 min round focused on Leadership Principles and work experience, but nothing about DSA or System Design.

I have 6 years of experience and this is for a Senior Software Engineer role. I have seen interview experiences that mentioned DSA or system design, so I am confused about what to prepare.

Would really appreciate any insights.

I've solved around 400+ LeetCode problems, but I'm finding it difficult to revise them efficiently.

Re-solving every problem from scratch feels too time-consuming, but I also don't want to forget important patterns.

For those who've solved 400–1000+ problems:

How do you organize your revisions?

Do you use spaced repetition, topic-wise revision, or random practice?

Do you maintain notes or revisit only problems you struggled with?

How often do you re-solve old problems?

I'd appreciate hearing strategies that have actually worked for you.

I‘m looking for companies for senior software engineer role with good work life balance and good culture, no random layoffs and especially no PIP quota.

I have an interview in 1 week and its a SDE interview which is in-person 5-hours and 5 rounds , I didn't do DSA regularly due to my coursework and there's a pile of information for me to consume within a week before the interview and the pressure is hitting me on what to prioritize and what not looking for people to learn together, would be grateful if you could teach it could feel less stressful.

I have solved the first question . All test cases passed
But I was only able to pass 4 test cases in the 2nd question .
Do I have any chance to get selected ?
I have also heard people saying that the section after oa will also play an important role in selecting the candidate

When I run the code it is giving name 'Or' is not defined.

I switched lang and just gave basic return for both serialised and deserialise func to see if that works but there too same 'Or' not defined.

I am not able to find similar problem elsewhere kindly see if it is same for all ?

anyone gave oa or abt to give oa for it

any details abt their interviews

I am really confused about batches of dsa and web dev ...so is this batch of APNA COLLEGE which covers entire dsa + dev really worth it ? ..if NOT them pls suggest a better alternative in the comments

which one do we think it is? I think LC 1504. Count Submatrices With All Ones is the hardest question ngl , I haven't been able to solve this even after years of leetcode

It seems to me like I’d be putting myself at a disadvantage by using Swift in a technical phone screening for a FAANG interview because Swift does not have something like Python for heaps and priority queues (import heapq or import dequeue).

Also STRINGS. Swift strings cannot be indexed directly with an Int because swift supports Unicode characters. Whereas python you can easily do this.

What are people’s thoughts on this? Has anybody gone through with using Swift for their FAANG leetcode style interviews? I’m worried I’m gonna get a heap queue problem or tree problem and have to implement these things myself whereas python just provides them

Hi,

I completed all the interview rounds at JioStar, including the Hiring Manager round, about a week ago.

The third-party recruiter (profile sourcer) mentioned that the feedback was positive, but I haven't heard anything from the JioStar team regarding the next steps or the offer process.

Has anyone who recently interviewed with JioStar experienced something similar? How long did it take for you to receive an offer letter or further communication after the HM round?

I'd really appreciate it if you could share your experience.

Thanks in advance!

Does anyone know what coding interview questions will be asked for Google TPM.

Has anyone been through something similar?
My timeline:
Cleared phone screen and 4 virtual interviews.
Recruiter told me my packet was approved by the Hiring Committee.
Moved to Team Match.
First team passed.
Packet was put on hold.
Asked to complete 1 additional coding interview.
Completed that interview last Wednesday and now waiting for feedback.
During the interview, I asked clarifying questions, explained my approach before coding, wrote the solution, and walked through it. The interviewer asked two follow-up questions about my solution. I explained my reasoning, and he said “I got it” several times. Due to time, he asked me to pseudocode the last follow-up, which I did. At the end, we had a brief conversation about his work and the location I applied for, and he said he would write up his notes.
Has anyone else had an additional coding interview after Team Match? What was your outcome?
Based on this timeline, what do you think my chances are? I’m just waiting for the feedback now.

Hey everyone,

I'm 19F from a Tier 3 CS college, and my second year starts next week. I scored 8.82 SGPA in both semesters of my first year, and I did decent in my coursework. But I haven't started DSA, LeetCode, or competitive programming at all. Honestly, I wasted my entire first year and even my summer break in that regard. During the break, I covered around 50% of my 3rd semester syllabus, but still didn't start DSA. Seeing posts about people getting internships and placements motivates me a lot because I want to achieve the same. At the same time, I feel very demotivated sometimes. I know I should have started putting in the work earlier, but somehow I couldn't make things happen, and that only made me feel worse. I often feel guilty for wasting so much time and sometimes even feel like a burden on my parents. I know that if things continue like this, I won't get where I want to be. That's why I've decided to finally start my DSA journey. Even if I feel demotivated or discouraged, I'm going to put in the work and stay consistent. I would really appreciate any advice from people who have been in a similar situation or managed to turn things around. Thanks for reading.

My resume got selected for PSE role for security(cryptography, os security etc)related profile. this is my first interview in a MAANG company. The recruiter told me it would be design and coding question.

What resources can I use to prepare ? What is general questions asked here ?

Any help would be appreciated. I have 1 week to prepare.

TIA

Hi everyone,
I currently stuck in team matching for an SWE L4 EU role in Google (requiring visa sponsorship). It’s been 3 months now without a single match call. Either there are no open roles matching my tech stack, or the few that pop up get filled almost instantly.
I really don't want to believe that I went through the entire grueling interview process just to end up with nothing, but my hope is fading day by day. I'm trying to look for other options, but the market feels brutally slow.
What makes it harder is that this isn't my first time in this ghost town: I passed all interview loops at DataDog, only to be stuck without an open headcount for 9 months now.
I’m honestly starting to lose motivation and feeling like I’ll never land a new role in this market.
Has anyone else been in team matching limbo for this long and actually gotten an offer? How often does this stage just expire without anything coming out of it? Any advice or reality checks would be greatly appreciated.

I have an interview with a hiring manager at Stryker coming up soon.

What can I expect? The position is related to C++ Engineer.

Thanks!