not really, I will just soak in all the comments on topics I find interesting and by repeatedly clicking comment threads to topics I find interesting, I kind of do that automatically, I guess. The HN people tend to repeat the same sentiment over time for each new link on a certain topic, so much even, that it is easy to assume what the top 5 comments will be, haha. however, sentiment can change over time. and sometimes a comment is so poignant or interesting that it will just stick in my brain immediately.
Thanks for sharing! I can relate I am also on a same boat and realized now leetcode is the way out then serving non FAANG org which I thought will serve me well for my loyalty and hard work I gave so far.
Thanks solid advice I can related as I did follow the same after wasting lot of time on LC problems I cant solve. I have started getting good at LC. Since you landed job at FAANG, I would really appreciate if you can share tips on specific question says finding max path in a matrix it is graph problem but how can you master it so code flows in 30 minutes or less. Did you actually solve same problems multiple times?
If you want the code to flow easy, it's all about putting in the hours and working at the right level of difficultly. Not too hard, so that you're not making any progress, and not too easy such that it's not stimulating your mind. Think of it like hitting the gym, it's just you're building mental muscle (and stamina) instead of physical.
And yes, many problems I solved 3 or more times. If you go to the discussion section, you'll see a number of different popular solutions by users. Try to understand and implement a few of them to get a greater understanding of the problem. Once you feel like you know the problem well, delete all your code, see if you can re-implement it in under 10 minutes, then try again for 5. Keep putting in those reps, you'll get faster.
Think about how fast you can write out a simple for loop. You probably don't even think about it, the code just "flows" out. That's because you've done it hundreds or thousands of times, your subconscious takes over. You can get to that point with more complex things like breadth first search, depth first search, dynamic programming, path finding, etc. you just need to get the reps in. It's a lot of work, but if you put in the time (try for a couple hours a day) you will see the results. And, once you start getting better, leetcode can become addictive like a game, which makes practice much easier.
