Preface by saying that I have a non-cs engineering degree. Would it be worth learning a popular full stack first, or just leetcoding day in and out. My original plan was to learn MERN/MEAN, build some projects, and then finally leetcode/study system design. I was planning on doing it this way, because I wasn't sure if I could get interviews right away at the major tech companies.
Learning a stack is what you will have to actually be able to do, as opposed to knowing a stack.
Don’t be a one trick pony. LC gets your foot in the door, but you need to be able to adapt to whatever your team is using
As an interviewer I ask both. I put more emphasis on the stack knowledge however. Have had a few bad hires who were strong with LC type of questions, but practically useless when it came time to actually do the job
Ah khah! The trivia smarts only go so far. I've had interviews where they threw the whiteboard at me or dumb code tests - I'd refuse the test. For the whiteboard- I'd architect it out with a flowchart + describe what I'd do ... in the course of a minute. If my proven record isn't enough for these clowns, I don't got the patience to jump thru their hoops. Gimme a real challenge. Don't waste my time.
Is that y u are not at faang? Just curious not being rude
Some companies test hands on coding, some do LC, some test combo
Get good with python, decent with sql, and ok with a minimal web framework like flask that teaches you the basics. Then leetcode all the way
Stacks change with the seasons, but Comp Sci fundamentals don't. (Math, Data structures, and Algorithms)
do both
OP you being an undergrad fundamentals are what you should get good at, plus one language you really understand to do the interviews in. No one at FAANG is likely to ask you stack specific questions unless it’s to sniff out bullshit on your resume.
Stack knowledge is less important, but you should know how what are the basic parts of a web-app (backend, frontend, db, frontend web server etc) and it will be difficult to gain that understanding without building one yourself. I would spend some time learning how to build a web-app and might as well pick a popular stack i.e. mern but you don't need to master node or react. After you have that basic understanding I think most of the effort should shift to leetcoding
Should we also spend time on unit, integration, e2e tests, configuration properties, dockerizing apps, service discovery etc before jumping on the leetcode bandwagon?
No.. that stuff is not expected for entry level dev. At least not at large companies
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