Before you got into a Big N did you feel like you were never going to be able to pass the interview?
Obligatory current tc and yoe: 115k 2.5yoe (out of Master's degree) My company sucks, it pays shit compared to the qualifications required to work here. A few months ago I set my sights on getting into a Big N. Most my experience is in firmware/fpga development but I minored in CS. I am two chapters from being done with Skienas book Algorithm Design Manual to refresh my cs knowledge and I've been doing almost all the problems in the book (looking up solutions when I got stuck for more than 30-40min). But so far haven't really done any leetcode style questions where you actually code. I made an account on interviewbit to start out and I'm taking way longer than I expected on some of the array questions. Is it possible I just am not clever enough to learn this stuff to the point where I can solve these questions quickly and efficiently during an interview? Or am I defeating myself too soon? I know I just started the grind but I am worried I won't ever get to the point where the solutions will come to me quickly. I don't want to just memorize the solutions, I want to understand and be able to synthesize them myself so I will do well in interviews with questions not pulled straight from leetcode? I know Blind likes to just say "MORE LEETCODE" but can I get honest responses about the process of learning this stuff and truly understanding how to produce it, as opposed to just doing leetcode and memorizing solutions.
I think you just need more practice. As has been said before, a lot of questions are just variants of each other and the more questions you do, the more you start seeing the underlying patterns. Closer to the interview date, I would suggest practising on a whiteboard and thinking out loud so you get in to the groove of doing both of those simultaneously. Personal anecdote: When I started doing LeetCode seriously last year, I would struggle with the Easy/Medium questions and now, I can solve most of the Medium questions within ~30 Minutes. I still get stumped on some here and there but the more I kept solving, the more patterns I see. Even the Hard questions are just some small variant of the Medium ones.
We need firmware and fpga. Pm me if you want a referral to get in the door
I really appreciate that, I may hit you up when I am feeling more confident and have done more practice
What ended up happening @OP
If you can get the answers but you are slow you likely just need to practice. I have 9 yoe and failed my Uber interview because I was too slow on the whiteboard even though I knew how to solve the questions. So I practiced 150 leetcode and got offers at Facebook Netflix and Google. It really does work.