Leetcode importance
How much % does leetcode questions contribute in FAANG , Uber Microsoft etc ? Will it just be white board or in some ide ?will they actually run lot of testcases against it If whiteboard how about border cases ? And do we have to explain space tome complexity?
All coding rounds in google are leetcode. Not the exact same questions as on leetcode - they get banned if discovered, but very similar, so learn general patterns, don't just memorize. You can code on whiteboard and in many offices now on a chromebook in a rudimentary web editor with syntax highlight, CodeMirror or something. Noone's really gonna test your code, the interviewer will probably spot your mistakes right away as they usually just reuse their favorite questions in each interview and know the pitfalls.
How similar are they do LC? Basically similar with a slight twist on the questions? or just similar topics?
Similar topics, sometimes similar problems with a twist or even exact same problem if the interviewer didn't bother researching if it leaked and got banned
General consensus is no matter how good your experience/previous company prestige etc. if you are interviewing for engineering focused role below director prepare to get leetcode medium/hard and system design.
What are director level interviews like?
My assumption is a mix of system design/org goals/career growth structure for org/dealing with other orgs/growth ideas/current tech stack and future tech stack