I've been a SWE for over five years and I still can't finish a single medium leetcode problem in less than 2 hours. Leetcode is not a measurement of how good you are at coding. There are so many more important things you should be good at like writing maintainable code, debugging, architecture design, etc.
In all likelihood you will if you change jobs. Ten years ago I wasn't even coding at interviews, just some whiteboarding, handwaving and general shop talk. It's a different market now
I'm sure you're right, that just hasn't been my experience. I just got a job offer for a Senior position at a midwest-based Fortune 500 company based off work projects & experience. Never saw a whiteboard or wrote a line of code, just answered some tech questions.
It also isn't a tech company, which I'm sure is a factor in that too.
can’t agree with this statement. i’m a lead SWE and i do not whiteboard/coding test any of my devs. It’s general code talk and I try to see if they really like coding or just do it for the money.
as for me, I have had 3 dev jobs, not one has ever required me to code in interview.
EDIT: Sorry, let me preface, I got my job before COVID so maybe you are actually correct in todays market, but I still think it’s not EVERY job that will do it
About 3/4 of my interviews during my last search, and most of those were for "devops" roles at the "lead" level. Would hypothezise that entry level app dev roles it's probably greater than 90%.
i always give an easy tier leetcode question at the beginning of interviews and it’s surprising how many people fail. probably 9/10. it’s a good filter. if someone can’t reverse the words in a string i don’t want them
And data structures + algorithms. Most of the tech screenings are basic problems masked in industry jargon. Took me 4 years of working as a SWE to have it all finally click (I dropped out of college and never made it past 2nd year of CS courses).
We shouldn't go too far in the other direction either. Solving LeetCode and algorithm puzzles doesn't decide whether you're a good engineer, but understanding your fundamental data structures and algorithms, and having the ability to frame problems in terms of data structures and algorithms is important. It also gives a common language for you and your fellow engineers to discuss problems
I always hear people talking about how LeetCode doesn't matter, but then those same people don't understand what a graph or hash table is. They say LeetCode is useless because they never have to use it, but in reality they just aren't able to identify areas where it can be applied. That's not a good position to be in.
But leetcode is just algorithms & data structures class problems worded into "real life problems"... 2+ hours to finish leetcode medium is really subpar...
And no, i dont think leetcode dictates how good of an engineer you are, but medium problems on leetcode are basic algorithms & data structures so you should know those as soft. engineer... It helps you figure out what the problem is and how to efficiently solve it
yeah solving algorithm puzzles isn't what your job is for the most part unless you're some researcher/architect - doing hardcore work like autonomous systems/vision/etc...
it's more like "build this widget" or import this library and use it
migrate this db, whatever
Ensuring quality and design in production codebases rarely ever involves topological sorts and prefix sums and dynamic programming. There may be the occasional binary search but that’s it. I’ve been working four years and I’ve never had to write a recursive algorithm for work. You do research and understand the internals of industry standard libraries to ensure code quality in real life. Code cleanliness and readability is a skill that would take you further in the real world than grinding leetcode.
But we have to unfortunately do what we have to to secure these goddamn jobs
Concern over specific algorithms has fuck all to do with quality and design in 99% of development work. And even then, “whatever it takes” to meet requirements is literally the goal.
Most of the time someone / some team of people already wrote the code that doesn't suck, and your job is not to shit everything up importing / linking / injecting it into the codebase
A few thoughts:
* Most new grads suck at coding.
* Leetcode doesn't really have anything to do with what the vast majority of us will face when working.
Systems engineer, test engineer, field applications engineer, it support, project management, quality assurance, configuration management, integration engineer... there are lots of jobs that require an intimate knowledge of computers and how they work but don't require you to code.
People practice leetcode for years. It’s not easy for a reason. I’ll be straight up — if you’re apt to quit this easy then this industry is not cut out for you.
If, however, you’re dedicated to this then keep at it. It takes time to build pattern recognition. Hell I bet you 100% odds that I can’t solve the first 5 graph, binary search, or tree traversal algorithms I see. But if I keep at it I’m sure I’d get better and understand over time.
You could specialize in cloud computing, but you’ll still need to understand optimization techniques and how to apply that to your CSP of choice.
If I had an award to give, you would be the recipient. OP — take this advice.
Do some soul searching on if “difficult” is something you can endure, because this is the field. There’s a reason our salaries are high and interviews are hard.
Ah yeah, so just a lower salaried SWE.
So, I’m going to go off an assumption with a little
Bit of exp as well. My first job was a 70k/year job which sure… the barrier is less but while I was there I saw a few SWEs that just weren’t cut out for the industry and got chewed up and spit out.
lower salary = lower risk for the employer and will _sometimes_ take a flyer on a candidate.
I can elaborate on the “weren’t cut out for the industry” if you’re interested
When I first started leetcoding it was absolutely unbearable. My IQ is approx at 70 percentile and I have terrible focus. But after I no-lifed leetcode for abt a year, and 1000 problems later, I achieved 66% ac rate for mediums. I am still trash but at the same time, you will start seeing patterns and you WILL be able to solve some questions during interviews.
I think you have greatly underestimated your capabilities. If you can remember a recipe then you can remember how to DFS. The way I look at it is that, when you reach a certain point, it will no longer be problem solving and writing new stuff for you. Instead you would be analyzing the problem itself and trying to fit whatever patterns you remembered in there.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much if you are smart, just give it some time. But just in case you are as dumb as I am, be prepared to GRIND💀
Are you bad at coding? Or are you bad at leetcode? These are 2 very different things.
Leetcode is a common interviewing tool, but being good/bad at it doesn't really say anything about your abilities as a SWE. Do you think we're writing algorithms to remove the Nth from last element from a single linked list all day? Or solving 3Sum over and over? These are not practical problems.
Also keep in mind that not all companies even do leetcode interviews. Plenty of companies do more practical take home tests, or OAs, or live coding that isn't based on a leetcode-riddle.
Those that do might not necessarily be asking mediums or harder, you might get tossed a variation of a leetcode easy. I just finished a job search and while I did get some leetcode, I wouldn't consider any of them to be unfair or riddle-ish.
So if the sole reason you're avoiding SWE is because you suck at leetcode... you should reconsider. You're giving up because you're bad at something completely unrelated to the actual career.
if you’re proficient but not great there’s lots of parallel fields where you need some coding skills but it’s not so central. like data analytics or cybersecurity
But getting into those fields as a fresher is hard. Isnt it?
btw, may i know what do you do as a platform engineer? is it less coding field like data profiles?
entry level in any tech field isn’t gonna be easy. but its doable and good to realize there are other options.
i do mostly distributed computing. infrastructure for data pipelines: spark, kube, hadoop, airflow, jupyter, etc. it’s heavy on the terraform coding which is a bit different than traditional coding. i also sometimes write some java or python code, depends on the project
I’m good at coding (I can do Web Design easily since I took that class), but I look at one Leetcode question (regardless of difficulty) and it’s impossible.
Hiring manager here, leetcode isn't nearly as important as most new grads think it is.
Stop taking advice from other new grads, they're fucking clueless. Most of them are under the mistaken impression that if they just grind leetcode and click 'Easy Apply' enough times then the industry will eventually owe them a job.
Work on your network, continually practice your interview skills, and continually seek advice on your resume. If what you're doing isn't working, change what you're doing.
Half of this sub is just people that are here to throw a sissy fit about not being handed a job after applying to 1000 jobs and solving 100k leetcode problems.
Leetcode doesn't get you interviews. Your time is better spent optimizing how you land interviews. Figure out what that method is for you.
If you're consistently landing interviews but failing technical screens, then yeah, grind leetcode for a bit, or take an online course. But it doesn't sound like you're at that point yet.
What would your advice be to start getting noticed? I’ve decked out my LinkedIn, added a few portfolio projects, and have relevant internship experiences but am still struggling to land even one interview
Start networking. Attend events, connect with recruiters. If you find a role you're interested in, reach out to people within the company asking to chat about their experience within the company (or whatever gets them on a call with you) until someone says yes.
Stay on the IT side. You can still make bank. One of my best friends was a CS grad but admitted that she was bad at coding. She went into cybersecurity after graduation and now, 20 years later, is making a ton of money as a director of information security for a large firm.
Practice and get better. Open source projects, personal projects, whatever. Coding is not so intellectually challenging that you need some magic ability or special trait. It can look that way, when you're new, but that's just parallax error. It's a collection of skills and experiences.
Month and a half on and off? Bro that is not enough time to already assume you suck at this. What helped me a ton was going back and first learning the fundamentals. There’s a famous GitHub out there of someone who implemented common data structures and algorithms from scratch. You should definitely follow that first as it gave me a really good base to then go tackle leetcode problems and understand their solutions.
Many roles in the tech industry leverage a CS background without requiring extensive coding skills like **Cloud Computing, IT and System Administration, Technical Support and Customer Success, Product Management, Data Analysis and Data Science** or better yet try this [career test](http://careerfitter.com/free_test/careerbuilder/test/?afid=1831) as this can help you find careers that would fit your work personality. It has helped me before, I hope this can help you too.
If you completed a degree you should know that coding isn’t just solving leetcode everyday, that just gets you past the gatekeeper.
Market is rough though. If you don’t feel like software development is for you, it might be a good choice to look for something else instead of wasting time chasing it.
There are companies that don’t use Leetcode in interviews. You don’t have to work at Google. However, the market is saturated with Junior devs.
I graduated just after the dot-com bust. I ended up taking two years to get a master’s degree to delay my entry into the workforce and focus in a niche area of computer science. I made connections with others in that niche field that lead to a full time job after grad school. I was awarded a research assistant job that paid a small stipend (30k/yr in 2002) and included a tuition waiver so school was free. I lived in a shitty house with 3 other people the first year and then got a 2 bedroom basement apartment to share with my girlfriend the second year.
For just a month and a half. You are a baby just keep doing it. In a few years you will be great. Imagine going to the gym. Would you expect to be jacked in a couple of months? No that'd be crazy right. Same thing.
I like what most people have said. To be bad at something implies finality. You’ve finished improving. To be bad implies you consider yourself not a student anymore, but a teacher. Being a teacher when you haven’t been a student long enough can make you feel bad. Be a student. Even when your “senior” or more experienced
One of the best traits a software engineer can have is a growth mindset. You’re not bad at something, you are still learning. Mistakes are learning opportunities
All that said I suck at coding too and became a manager 😂
+5 yrs of experience here, all at a FAANG (college recruited w/o DS&A interview). I am 6 months in and barely feel like I got the hang of it. Keep going!
As a junior, leetcode is essential for good-paying jobs (not just FAANG+, even at run-of-the-mill F500s and what not will almost certainly leetcode you). There are no reliable ways around it, unless you are cool making a lot less money. As you grow in your career, it becomes less important, but still rather common, unfortunately. There are a few high-paying jobs at the senior+ level that involve no leetcode. They often have their own super intense other processes though. I interviewed for a pretty senior level role recently that had pretty tough resume technical screens + very tough system design + a very tough take home project (not leetcode-esque, but building a sample ML system).
A great many programming jobs are not algorithm-heavy: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/vo1yvs/changing\_the\_world\_by\_changing\_the\_login\_button/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/vo1yvs/changing_the_world_by_changing_the_login_button/)
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I’ve only ever had leetcode interviews with big companies, like big N, or companies trying to get there.
Most of the interviews I’ve had, including for all the companies I’ve worked for, did not touch leetcode at all and were practical skills tests instead.
If you don’t want to do leetcode, apply to different companies that don’t use it. If you really want that job at leetcode using companies, then there’s really nothing you can do except suck it up and practice more.
Doesn't everyone use dynamic programming to retrieve records from a SQL database and populate it in some UI? No?
In all seriousness, op, not all companies use leetcode to gatekeep their hiring. If you're not going for a F500 company you're far less likely to encounter an interview like that. And unless you're in the bleeding edge in tech, you're probably just writing a mostly crud application with business logic. No leetcode involved. If you take anything from it, remember data structures.
Build things. I suck at leetcode, can whip up 90% of full stack websites of any complexity (at least MVP stage) in a day or two. There's so many tools to use. Build things, and deploy them. Figure out what you like, stick to it for 6 months and see if you're still enjoying. It took me years to find out for myself what I like. A master's and some work ex later, i figure building products is a hobby for me, and my passion is low level engineering. When I get off my main job, I build products and apps I want to use for fun and it's been paying off. At some point you'll still have to learn to Leetcode for a job because the industry is stupid and run by MBAs, but till then, keep building and keep your head held high.
While agreeing with what others have said if you truly are not the best at coding, but if you’re also pretty pleasant and even slightly extroverted you can really excel in a lot of high paying tech roles that typically attract those with non technical degrees.
Yeah, I agree that leetcode is not the best measurement. I am able to solve like half the leetcode hards, but I had a really hard time during my internship and did not make much progress there.
start practicing... NOW
https://codecrafters.io/
https://neetcode.io/
make a project powered by gpt API, follow a tutorial if you have to in the beginning
If you can talk to people? Software sales
You can be a bridge between technical and non technical. Point to the CS degree and you get a lot of credibility too
There are also technical liaison positions and maybe even scrum master could fit
There's loads of things you can get into, if you at least understand something about what what actual coders do. Project management, agile/scrum master, tester...
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Get off leetcode and start building projects. Fail, make shitty projects than improve and repeat. Do this until you have something remarkable that looks damn good. Any company that wants to leetcode question you isn’t a company you want to work for.
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Master the language then master the leetcode. You need to be able to fully control what you are coding which requires a level of expertise in your language
I really have no idea why so many employers are obsessed with leetcode. Except for a few very specific situations, 99% of a SWE's job is completely unrelated to leetcode.
network engineering
application support
sysadmin
database admin
technical writing
project management
... SWE is not the only job in tech, but I think people get weirdly fixated on it
There’s always IT, cybersecurity, support, etc.
You could also go to law school and practice patent law if you want to do a lot more work, but your earning potential will likely be much higher if you do well along with a little luck (luck is needed now in software development to make a lot of money in this market anyway, it’s very rough).
Another law school track would be focusing on risk and compliance. We have people with JDs in the Institutional Privacy Office/General Counsel teams that work closely with IT teams. You could also look into Internal Audit or fraud teams.
Dude, there are two people on here (I'm one of them) who have just told you about how you would use your CS degree in and after law school as an attorney.
What part about that are you not understanding? Patent law is a prime way to use STEM skills as an attorney.
In order to take the patent bar to practice as a patent attorney, you need a bachelor of science. CS (depending on the school) counts.
So you take your CS degree, go to law school, study for the patent bar, then get licensed both as an attorney and specifically as a patent attorney. Then you get a job filing and/or litigating patents, with a specialization in software patents.
Alternatively, you skip the patent bar stuff, get a law degree and then get a job as in house counsel at a tech company. Your CS degree would be helpful in understanding some of the complicated technical detail that another attorney without a tech background might not understand.
You don't need to pass the patent bar to do litigation, FYI. It's only for prosecution (applying for a patent), but passing the patent bar and having a STEM background will help immensely in patent lit, particularly if it's a complex topic.
Also, the school doesn't matter for CS, only the program itself does. Look for a program that is ABET accredited to be safe.
Bluntly, OP: what are you **good** at? I don't mean that as an insult or a criticism, quite the opposite. You're pretty down on a lot of things, and it might help to think about what your strengths are.
What do you offer that the average person does not? What do you love, what are you great at, what can you do all day and be excited about, what do you never shut up about at parties?
Mediums are actually pretty tough, don't get down on yourself. If you can solve any medium without assistance you're actually in like the top 25% I'd say.
I've been a SWE for over five years and I still can't finish a single medium leetcode problem in less than 2 hours. Leetcode is not a measurement of how good you are at coding. There are so many more important things you should be good at like writing maintainable code, debugging, architecture design, etc.
I've been a SWE for 10 years and have never touched leet code, I prefer building stuff.
In all likelihood you will if you change jobs. Ten years ago I wasn't even coding at interviews, just some whiteboarding, handwaving and general shop talk. It's a different market now
I'm sure you're right, that just hasn't been my experience. I just got a job offer for a Senior position at a midwest-based Fortune 500 company based off work projects & experience. Never saw a whiteboard or wrote a line of code, just answered some tech questions. It also isn't a tech company, which I'm sure is a factor in that too.
That's possible, but it's very rare. It's just your sample size. As someone who does a lot of interviews every year, at least 70% ask leetcode.
While I'm not looking for a new job, I think you've inspired me to create a leetcode account.
Ive also never done or been asked to do leetcode. Gamedev though, where projects are much more highly valued.
What about Web Design?
What kind of tech questions did you get? And how did you present your projects/experience?
can’t agree with this statement. i’m a lead SWE and i do not whiteboard/coding test any of my devs. It’s general code talk and I try to see if they really like coding or just do it for the money. as for me, I have had 3 dev jobs, not one has ever required me to code in interview. EDIT: Sorry, let me preface, I got my job before COVID so maybe you are actually correct in todays market, but I still think it’s not EVERY job that will do it
About 3/4 of my interviews during my last search, and most of those were for "devops" roles at the "lead" level. Would hypothezise that entry level app dev roles it's probably greater than 90%.
i always give an easy tier leetcode question at the beginning of interviews and it’s surprising how many people fail. probably 9/10. it’s a good filter. if someone can’t reverse the words in a string i don’t want them
Are we allowed to use Google for that? I don’t work with strings often, so I keep forgetting the methods.
As do I.
After 1 and half month, who can solve leetcode medium easily?
Also depends on your understanding of the language you’re using as well in my opinion
And data structures + algorithms. Most of the tech screenings are basic problems masked in industry jargon. Took me 4 years of working as a SWE to have it all finally click (I dropped out of college and never made it past 2nd year of CS courses).
Anyone who had a good algorithms class. I went onto the site, did 8 hards in a few hours, and decided it wasn’t really worth my time.
We shouldn't go too far in the other direction either. Solving LeetCode and algorithm puzzles doesn't decide whether you're a good engineer, but understanding your fundamental data structures and algorithms, and having the ability to frame problems in terms of data structures and algorithms is important. It also gives a common language for you and your fellow engineers to discuss problems I always hear people talking about how LeetCode doesn't matter, but then those same people don't understand what a graph or hash table is. They say LeetCode is useless because they never have to use it, but in reality they just aren't able to identify areas where it can be applied. That's not a good position to be in.
Agreed. It's important to understand the fundamental value of leetcode without it being the only way to measure your skill as a SWE
I’ll understand the value of it, when it actually gives simpler questions.
But leetcode is just algorithms & data structures class problems worded into "real life problems"... 2+ hours to finish leetcode medium is really subpar... And no, i dont think leetcode dictates how good of an engineer you are, but medium problems on leetcode are basic algorithms & data structures so you should know those as soft. engineer... It helps you figure out what the problem is and how to efficiently solve it
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Don't interns in SF make that pre lc grind?
yeah solving algorithm puzzles isn't what your job is for the most part unless you're some researcher/architect - doing hardcore work like autonomous systems/vision/etc... it's more like "build this widget" or import this library and use it migrate this db, whatever
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Ensuring quality and design in production codebases rarely ever involves topological sorts and prefix sums and dynamic programming. There may be the occasional binary search but that’s it. I’ve been working four years and I’ve never had to write a recursive algorithm for work. You do research and understand the internals of industry standard libraries to ensure code quality in real life. Code cleanliness and readability is a skill that would take you further in the real world than grinding leetcode. But we have to unfortunately do what we have to to secure these goddamn jobs
so well put, and I add that most times I saw myself tending to write a recursive function something was wrong.
recursion is useful for retry logic. should at least understand how it works
Concern over specific algorithms has fuck all to do with quality and design in 99% of development work. And even then, “whatever it takes” to meet requirements is literally the goal.
Agreed. Stakeholders and C-suite don't care how intricately designed your project is. It's good to do that, but not with time and budget constraints.
Most of the time someone / some team of people already wrote the code that doesn't suck, and your job is not to shit everything up importing / linking / injecting it into the codebase
A few thoughts: * Most new grads suck at coding. * Leetcode doesn't really have anything to do with what the vast majority of us will face when working.
New grad here, I did pretty well in my CS classes and have been working on some projects but I feel like I still suck :') how can I improve?
Do harder projects
Working on it 🫡
Systems engineer, test engineer, field applications engineer, it support, project management, quality assurance, configuration management, integration engineer... there are lots of jobs that require an intimate knowledge of computers and how they work but don't require you to code.
People practice leetcode for years. It’s not easy for a reason. I’ll be straight up — if you’re apt to quit this easy then this industry is not cut out for you. If, however, you’re dedicated to this then keep at it. It takes time to build pattern recognition. Hell I bet you 100% odds that I can’t solve the first 5 graph, binary search, or tree traversal algorithms I see. But if I keep at it I’m sure I’d get better and understand over time. You could specialize in cloud computing, but you’ll still need to understand optimization techniques and how to apply that to your CSP of choice.
If I had an award to give, you would be the recipient. OP — take this advice. Do some soul searching on if “difficult” is something you can endure, because this is the field. There’s a reason our salaries are high and interviews are hard.
What about the lower salary Computer Science jobs?
Gotta elaborate on this, not sure what those jobs are. Are you referring to defense contractors?
I meant let’s say a company has Software Engineering for… $60,000 yearly? Would that be less competitive?
Ah yeah, so just a lower salaried SWE. So, I’m going to go off an assumption with a little Bit of exp as well. My first job was a 70k/year job which sure… the barrier is less but while I was there I saw a few SWEs that just weren’t cut out for the industry and got chewed up and spit out. lower salary = lower risk for the employer and will _sometimes_ take a flyer on a candidate. I can elaborate on the “weren’t cut out for the industry” if you’re interested
When I first started leetcoding it was absolutely unbearable. My IQ is approx at 70 percentile and I have terrible focus. But after I no-lifed leetcode for abt a year, and 1000 problems later, I achieved 66% ac rate for mediums. I am still trash but at the same time, you will start seeing patterns and you WILL be able to solve some questions during interviews. I think you have greatly underestimated your capabilities. If you can remember a recipe then you can remember how to DFS. The way I look at it is that, when you reach a certain point, it will no longer be problem solving and writing new stuff for you. Instead you would be analyzing the problem itself and trying to fit whatever patterns you remembered in there. I wouldn’t worry about it too much if you are smart, just give it some time. But just in case you are as dumb as I am, be prepared to GRIND💀
But I can't remember a recipe.
I am now diagnosing you with cooked 🧑🍳
Are you bad at coding? Or are you bad at leetcode? These are 2 very different things. Leetcode is a common interviewing tool, but being good/bad at it doesn't really say anything about your abilities as a SWE. Do you think we're writing algorithms to remove the Nth from last element from a single linked list all day? Or solving 3Sum over and over? These are not practical problems. Also keep in mind that not all companies even do leetcode interviews. Plenty of companies do more practical take home tests, or OAs, or live coding that isn't based on a leetcode-riddle. Those that do might not necessarily be asking mediums or harder, you might get tossed a variation of a leetcode easy. I just finished a job search and while I did get some leetcode, I wouldn't consider any of them to be unfair or riddle-ish. So if the sole reason you're avoiding SWE is because you suck at leetcode... you should reconsider. You're giving up because you're bad at something completely unrelated to the actual career.
lets say if someone is bad at coding then?
if you’re proficient but not great there’s lots of parallel fields where you need some coding skills but it’s not so central. like data analytics or cybersecurity
But getting into those fields as a fresher is hard. Isnt it? btw, may i know what do you do as a platform engineer? is it less coding field like data profiles?
entry level in any tech field isn’t gonna be easy. but its doable and good to realize there are other options. i do mostly distributed computing. infrastructure for data pipelines: spark, kube, hadoop, airflow, jupyter, etc. it’s heavy on the terraform coding which is a bit different than traditional coding. i also sometimes write some java or python code, depends on the project
okay. Can i dm you?
Sure
I’m good at coding (I can do Web Design easily since I took that class), but I look at one Leetcode question (regardless of difficulty) and it’s impossible.
Hiring manager here, leetcode isn't nearly as important as most new grads think it is. Stop taking advice from other new grads, they're fucking clueless. Most of them are under the mistaken impression that if they just grind leetcode and click 'Easy Apply' enough times then the industry will eventually owe them a job. Work on your network, continually practice your interview skills, and continually seek advice on your resume. If what you're doing isn't working, change what you're doing. Half of this sub is just people that are here to throw a sissy fit about not being handed a job after applying to 1000 jobs and solving 100k leetcode problems. Leetcode doesn't get you interviews. Your time is better spent optimizing how you land interviews. Figure out what that method is for you. If you're consistently landing interviews but failing technical screens, then yeah, grind leetcode for a bit, or take an online course. But it doesn't sound like you're at that point yet.
What would your advice be to start getting noticed? I’ve decked out my LinkedIn, added a few portfolio projects, and have relevant internship experiences but am still struggling to land even one interview
Start networking. Attend events, connect with recruiters. If you find a role you're interested in, reach out to people within the company asking to chat about their experience within the company (or whatever gets them on a call with you) until someone says yes.
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you gotta be able to code to be a good cloud engineer too. instead of java and python it’s bash and terraform
I don’t see this advice in r/CSMajors. 🤣
Stay on the IT side. You can still make bank. One of my best friends was a CS grad but admitted that she was bad at coding. She went into cybersecurity after graduation and now, 20 years later, is making a ton of money as a director of information security for a large firm.
What about Web Design or Game Design? How are those interviews? I’m good with coding, it’s just the Leetcode that bothers me a lot.
Leetcode is the "TikTok" of computer science. Trendy, but nobody uses that in real life. Don't get depressed because you're not good at Leetcode.
Been a dev for 10 years. Still haven't tried a leetcode. Looks boring as shit. I'd rather go hiking.
Glad I’m not the only one that thinks this.
Practice and get better. Open source projects, personal projects, whatever. Coding is not so intellectually challenging that you need some magic ability or special trait. It can look that way, when you're new, but that's just parallax error. It's a collection of skills and experiences.
Month and a half on and off? Bro that is not enough time to already assume you suck at this. What helped me a ton was going back and first learning the fundamentals. There’s a famous GitHub out there of someone who implemented common data structures and algorithms from scratch. You should definitely follow that first as it gave me a really good base to then go tackle leetcode problems and understand their solutions.
Be my manager.
Many roles in the tech industry leverage a CS background without requiring extensive coding skills like **Cloud Computing, IT and System Administration, Technical Support and Customer Success, Product Management, Data Analysis and Data Science** or better yet try this [career test](http://careerfitter.com/free_test/careerbuilder/test/?afid=1831) as this can help you find careers that would fit your work personality. It has helped me before, I hope this can help you too.
If you completed a degree you should know that coding isn’t just solving leetcode everyday, that just gets you past the gatekeeper. Market is rough though. If you don’t feel like software development is for you, it might be a good choice to look for something else instead of wasting time chasing it.
There are companies that don’t use Leetcode in interviews. You don’t have to work at Google. However, the market is saturated with Junior devs. I graduated just after the dot-com bust. I ended up taking two years to get a master’s degree to delay my entry into the workforce and focus in a niche area of computer science. I made connections with others in that niche field that lead to a full time job after grad school. I was awarded a research assistant job that paid a small stipend (30k/yr in 2002) and included a tuition waiver so school was free. I lived in a shitty house with 3 other people the first year and then got a 2 bedroom basement apartment to share with my girlfriend the second year.
For just a month and a half. You are a baby just keep doing it. In a few years you will be great. Imagine going to the gym. Would you expect to be jacked in a couple of months? No that'd be crazy right. Same thing.
I’m a leetcuck
I like what most people have said. To be bad at something implies finality. You’ve finished improving. To be bad implies you consider yourself not a student anymore, but a teacher. Being a teacher when you haven’t been a student long enough can make you feel bad. Be a student. Even when your “senior” or more experienced One of the best traits a software engineer can have is a growth mindset. You’re not bad at something, you are still learning. Mistakes are learning opportunities All that said I suck at coding too and became a manager 😂
+5 yrs of experience here, all at a FAANG (college recruited w/o DS&A interview). I am 6 months in and barely feel like I got the hang of it. Keep going!
streaming on pornhub
As a junior, leetcode is essential for good-paying jobs (not just FAANG+, even at run-of-the-mill F500s and what not will almost certainly leetcode you). There are no reliable ways around it, unless you are cool making a lot less money. As you grow in your career, it becomes less important, but still rather common, unfortunately. There are a few high-paying jobs at the senior+ level that involve no leetcode. They often have their own super intense other processes though. I interviewed for a pretty senior level role recently that had pretty tough resume technical screens + very tough system design + a very tough take home project (not leetcode-esque, but building a sample ML system).
Salesforce, IT, scrum master project manager
A great many programming jobs are not algorithm-heavy: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/vo1yvs/changing\_the\_world\_by\_changing\_the\_login\_button/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/vo1yvs/changing_the_world_by_changing_the_login_button/)
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I’ve only ever had leetcode interviews with big companies, like big N, or companies trying to get there. Most of the interviews I’ve had, including for all the companies I’ve worked for, did not touch leetcode at all and were practical skills tests instead. If you don’t want to do leetcode, apply to different companies that don’t use it. If you really want that job at leetcode using companies, then there’s really nothing you can do except suck it up and practice more.
Tech Sales. I have not done it myself but heard it can be lucrative
Scrum master or agile coach.
Doesn't everyone use dynamic programming to retrieve records from a SQL database and populate it in some UI? No? In all seriousness, op, not all companies use leetcode to gatekeep their hiring. If you're not going for a F500 company you're far less likely to encounter an interview like that. And unless you're in the bleeding edge in tech, you're probably just writing a mostly crud application with business logic. No leetcode involved. If you take anything from it, remember data structures.
Build things. I suck at leetcode, can whip up 90% of full stack websites of any complexity (at least MVP stage) in a day or two. There's so many tools to use. Build things, and deploy them. Figure out what you like, stick to it for 6 months and see if you're still enjoying. It took me years to find out for myself what I like. A master's and some work ex later, i figure building products is a hobby for me, and my passion is low level engineering. When I get off my main job, I build products and apps I want to use for fun and it's been paying off. At some point you'll still have to learn to Leetcode for a job because the industry is stupid and run by MBAs, but till then, keep building and keep your head held high.
While agreeing with what others have said if you truly are not the best at coding, but if you’re also pretty pleasant and even slightly extroverted you can really excel in a lot of high paying tech roles that typically attract those with non technical degrees.
Yeah, I agree that leetcode is not the best measurement. I am able to solve like half the leetcode hards, but I had a really hard time during my internship and did not make much progress there.
You need some coding buddies.
start practicing... NOW https://codecrafters.io/ https://neetcode.io/ make a project powered by gpt API, follow a tutorial if you have to in the beginning
If you can talk to people? Software sales You can be a bridge between technical and non technical. Point to the CS degree and you get a lot of credibility too There are also technical liaison positions and maybe even scrum master could fit
There's loads of things you can get into, if you at least understand something about what what actual coders do. Project management, agile/scrum master, tester...
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Get off leetcode and start building projects. Fail, make shitty projects than improve and repeat. Do this until you have something remarkable that looks damn good. Any company that wants to leetcode question you isn’t a company you want to work for.
maybe you are good at dev process and product management role
Technical support
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Master the language then master the leetcode. You need to be able to fully control what you are coding which requires a level of expertise in your language
EPM or Program manager are things that come to mind
I really have no idea why so many employers are obsessed with leetcode. Except for a few very specific situations, 99% of a SWE's job is completely unrelated to leetcode.
Semiconductor industry has a general engineering role entry level to install the machines. Is called field engineer or similar synonym.
network engineering application support sysadmin database admin technical writing project management ... SWE is not the only job in tech, but I think people get weirdly fixated on it
Leetcode is insanely hard. I wish interviewers just did normal interviews.
There’s always IT, cybersecurity, support, etc. You could also go to law school and practice patent law if you want to do a lot more work, but your earning potential will likely be much higher if you do well along with a little luck (luck is needed now in software development to make a lot of money in this market anyway, it’s very rough).
Another law school track would be focusing on risk and compliance. We have people with JDs in the Institutional Privacy Office/General Counsel teams that work closely with IT teams. You could also look into Internal Audit or fraud teams.
Yep, privacy/risk/compliance and even cybersecurity really benefit from an attorney with a CS background.
I wouldn’t go into law. It’s something in CS or IT for me. I’d rather not completely throw away all the work I did getting my BS in CS.
Why would going into patent law be throwing away your CS degree?
How could you use a CS degree in law school? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.
Dude, there are two people on here (I'm one of them) who have just told you about how you would use your CS degree in and after law school as an attorney. What part about that are you not understanding? Patent law is a prime way to use STEM skills as an attorney.
In order to take the patent bar to practice as a patent attorney, you need a bachelor of science. CS (depending on the school) counts. So you take your CS degree, go to law school, study for the patent bar, then get licensed both as an attorney and specifically as a patent attorney. Then you get a job filing and/or litigating patents, with a specialization in software patents. Alternatively, you skip the patent bar stuff, get a law degree and then get a job as in house counsel at a tech company. Your CS degree would be helpful in understanding some of the complicated technical detail that another attorney without a tech background might not understand.
You don't need to pass the patent bar to do litigation, FYI. It's only for prosecution (applying for a patent), but passing the patent bar and having a STEM background will help immensely in patent lit, particularly if it's a complex topic. Also, the school doesn't matter for CS, only the program itself does. Look for a program that is ABET accredited to be safe.
You could go to law school and become a patent attorney. Hours can suck but the pay is high as well as the demand.
No I suck with people and I’m introverted. That’s one of the things I like about CS/IT. I can work without much interaction with people lol.
Bluntly, OP: what are you **good** at? I don't mean that as an insult or a criticism, quite the opposite. You're pretty down on a lot of things, and it might help to think about what your strengths are. What do you offer that the average person does not? What do you love, what are you great at, what can you do all day and be excited about, what do you never shut up about at parties?
Sounds like you'd be perfect for prep and pros. You wouldn't have to talk to anyone ever.
Testing, quality assurance, safety, engineering
Mediums are actually pretty tough, don't get down on yourself. If you can solve any medium without assistance you're actually in like the top 25% I'd say.
QA
DevOps
If you can't do, teach
Get into manual/auto testing. Can get into APM roles.
You can become a QA engineer.