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This is a follow-up to my previous article “The LeetCode Phenomenon”. While the article is targeted at folks who are struggling with converting interviews into offers, I’ve covered several tips/strategies that will be useful to anyone who is in the process of interviewing or curious about interviewing.
In the fall of 2019, I took a sabbatical from Software Engineering and spent a semester teaching interview preparation at the University of Puerto Rico. I co-taught and co-trail-blazed the course with a well loved and competent Professor.
I remember looking into the warm, curious eyes of the 30 students who had taken the elective. In their eyes, I saw excitement and expectation. Surely, there was no instructor better equipped to lead the course than a Software Engineer from Google?
In my first class, I made a mistake. I played this video. Then I told them that the only thing that stood between them and a juicy tech job offer was practice. “Let’s see how many of you can solve over 150 problems on LeetCode by the end of this semester”, I challenged them.
I do love the energy and delivery from the video. The crux of it is in this single line — “when you want to succeed, as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful”. When I was practicing for a half marathon, and struggling for motivation, the video inspired me…