I got this push message from Hacker News this morning and felt obliged to post my opinion on the "LeetCode thing" cause I'm currently trying the same thing as you are. I have a master degree on CS and 4 years of professional experience and trying to keep moving forward.
I don't believe solving LeetCode problems well is something that you have to be gifted to achieve. Ironically, I believed it once upon a time. I got very frustrated when failed tech interviews for Microsoft and Google when I was a new-grad and trying to find a decent job.
I know it's frustrating to just look at somebody finishing all the contest problems in 10min and you're scratching your head for many hours or even a whole day. Believe me I was literaly doing this for a long time. But I started my professional occupation anyway. What I did then is keep trying for several years since I know I'm stupid and stubborn. It turns out to be promising in the third year doing so.
I gradually find out there IS a way! There is a clear and straightforward path to do better in algorithm problems: just get a full list of basic data structures and algorithms, understand them all by watching youtube videos, learning online courses (MIT online courses helped be a lot), and practice tens of problems in each subject until you get sick of it. Currently I get 2481 points in LeetCode contest and I'm preparing for my next period of career and hope these hard work finally pay off!
In case someone need it, these 2 lists are very comprehensive and helped me a lot:
I don't believe solving LeetCode problems well is something that you have to be gifted to achieve. Ironically, I believed it once upon a time. I got very frustrated when failed tech interviews for Microsoft and Google when I was a new-grad and trying to find a decent job.
I know it's frustrating to just look at somebody finishing all the contest problems in 10min and you're scratching your head for many hours or even a whole day. Believe me I was literaly doing this for a long time. But I started my professional occupation anyway. What I did then is keep trying for several years since I know I'm stupid and stubborn. It turns out to be promising in the third year doing so.
I gradually find out there IS a way! There is a clear and straightforward path to do better in algorithm problems: just get a full list of basic data structures and algorithms, understand them all by watching youtube videos, learning online courses (MIT online courses helped be a lot), and practice tens of problems in each subject until you get sick of it. Currently I get 2481 points in LeetCode contest and I'm preparing for my next period of career and hope these hard work finally pay off!
In case someone need it, these 2 lists are very comprehensive and helped me a lot:
* https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university * https://techdevguide.withgoogle.com/
Hope it helps!