Work is getting boring lately and am not able to use my skills efficiently, dragged in so many stupid things at work that my coding skills are getting rusty. Thankful for my job but I am ready for next stint, I tried leetcode and got disappointed on how rusty I am now.. I have interview call from FANG/uber/airbnb/linkedin and most of the big shot companies in bay but I am not able to gather confidence to interview, how do I get back in the game and ace interviews like I used to? I have 5 years of experience and have cleared MS, QC, broadcom, Intel, vmware, juniper and lot more previously.
Leetcode
My strategy is to first review the basic data structures and algorithms and implement most of them from scratch. I then start with something easy like Cracking the Coding Interview and ease into leetcode.
Take a week off and leetcode. It will get you into the momentum. It’s much easier to practice in the evenings after work once you do this. It’s always difficult to start.
I was in a similar situation few months back. Stayed in a company for 7 years and had gotten real rusty. Here is my advice - spend 2-3 hrs on leetcode everyday without exception. You will struggle initially, but that’s OK. You can lookup the solutions for logic, but implement it yourself. Do first 100. Now create a new profile and repeat those 100 (try not to lookup this time), then do next 100. Repeat it until you feel comfortable solving things. I took 6 months to be comfortable. I had 4 offers and could have more but settled for one.
^^ this is the method I used. Go slow and steady. As a side effect, I rediscovered my love for algorithms. I want to add that skim through cormen rivest first.
Thankyou for all the replies
Leetcode, leetcode and more leetcode.