> isn't a working understanding, it's essentially memorization
Boring questions that you've seen before are memorization. But there's thousands of interesting questions out there that will never show up on leetcode.
Two examples from times I've been interviewed:
- One time my interviewer gave me about 15 lines of C code that used multiple threads and asked me if it was threadsafe (it wasn't). Then he gave me some threading primitive I hadn't seen before and asked me to fix it. Well, I had no idea what the threading primitive was so I was a bit stuffed. I asked him to explain it and he did, and then I (successfully) used it to solve the problem. He wanted to hire me, saying the fact that I hadn't seen that primitive before and still managed to figure out the answer within the interview impressed him more than anything else.
- Another time I was asked some more classic algorithm problem, where (in hindsight) the answer was clearly to use a priority queue. I didn't think of that, and under pressure I came up with some weird alternative in the interview. The interviewer messaged privately after the interview - he'd gone back to his desk and spent the next hour trying to figure out if my hairbrained idea would work, and he was as surprised as I was to realise it would. I told him I'd realised a priority queue was a good approach as soon as I walked out the door of the interview. I was offered the job.
I've never "crammed leetcode problems" in my life. I don't think thats what any interviewers are looking for. They're looking for people who can think on their feet and use DSA to solve real problems. AFAIK algorithm puzzle interviews predate leetcode. Algorithms have been used since the very early days of google and (I think) microsoft.
There's not a lot of difference between the algorithm interview and the leetcode interview--leetcode is just a story problem around some kind of basic algorithmic problem.
I've done multiple interviews where they use some site and you're expected to plow through 10 questions or whatever in 60 minutes. You can subscribe to the site to practice. Gazillions of employers use this site or one like it.
Boring questions that you've seen before are memorization. But there's thousands of interesting questions out there that will never show up on leetcode.
Two examples from times I've been interviewed:
- One time my interviewer gave me about 15 lines of C code that used multiple threads and asked me if it was threadsafe (it wasn't). Then he gave me some threading primitive I hadn't seen before and asked me to fix it. Well, I had no idea what the threading primitive was so I was a bit stuffed. I asked him to explain it and he did, and then I (successfully) used it to solve the problem. He wanted to hire me, saying the fact that I hadn't seen that primitive before and still managed to figure out the answer within the interview impressed him more than anything else.
- Another time I was asked some more classic algorithm problem, where (in hindsight) the answer was clearly to use a priority queue. I didn't think of that, and under pressure I came up with some weird alternative in the interview. The interviewer messaged privately after the interview - he'd gone back to his desk and spent the next hour trying to figure out if my hairbrained idea would work, and he was as surprised as I was to realise it would. I told him I'd realised a priority queue was a good approach as soon as I walked out the door of the interview. I was offered the job.
I've never "crammed leetcode problems" in my life. I don't think thats what any interviewers are looking for. They're looking for people who can think on their feet and use DSA to solve real problems. AFAIK algorithm puzzle interviews predate leetcode. Algorithms have been used since the very early days of google and (I think) microsoft.