I'm debating on the return on investment in grinding LeetCode for self-taught developers. I'm still early in my learning progress, but I can do basic LeetCode problems. If is worth my time to do more? Or should I instead invest that time into more practical projects? My goal is to find a remote job for a western company eventually.
To me, the problem with Leetcode for <i>beginners</i> is that many of the problems look like FizzBuzz...well the actual problem is that <i>beginners</i> solve the problems as if they are solving FizzBuzz.<p>There are two downsides to this. One is that beginners glean diminishing returns from writing another FizzBuzz level program. The second downside is that the problems are not FizzBuzz adjacent.<p>FizzBuzz transforms a known one-to-hundred constant into a one-two-Fizz-four-etc. constant.<p>Leetcode problems involve <i>engineering</i> a program to handle arbitrary inputs with consideration of time and space complexity. That's what makes Leetcode useful for screening employment candidates. Leetcode is designed to break FizzBuzz level adjacent code.<p>Or to put it another way, there are not "basic Leetcode" problems because solutions are tested against "adversarial" input.<p>To me, it is only worth doing LeetCode problems if you are focused on handling arbitrary IO with time and space efficiency. Only worth doing if you are approaching the problems as <i>engineering</i> problems. Good luck.
depends on what you want to do imo<p>web dev at an average to good company? no absolutely not worth it<p>anything at a FAANG? +/- mandatory<p>anything that involves complex algorithms?(efficient delivery/dispatching system at scale, complex social media, complex games, anything where efficiency/speed/low memory usage is extremely important) probably yes<p>otherwise some basic algorithm solving is probably enough(I really enjoyed the algorithmic exercises on freecodecamp web path for example, I think it's just enough for about 80-90% of junior programming jobs)
This was asked multiple times, the general consensus seemed to be "no", except if you enjoy doing them and so they're worth it for the pleasure you derive from them.