What are the good alternatives to LC in terms of interview preparation with the same effectiveness but not so overwhelming?

I found hack2hire, but they seem to have little number of problems in total... what else? codility?

Rather than running your code against 100 different test cases and failing you if you miss 1, is there a platform that can use AI to tell you if you have the correct approach that covers the general case and then a couple of the more common edge cases? I feel like that would more useful and more in line with a standard white board interview.

So far I haven’t used a service like leet code. But from what I read that even the simple problems are fairly difficult. My question is if there is an alternative I could start out with that isn’t as difficult to start out with.

I’m not opposed to Leetcode, But don’t want to start out as frustrated.

Hi, I'm looking for an app or site like sololearn but only for algorithms and data structures.i was thinking about solving leetcodes but I feel like a dumb ass since I mix up algorithms and can't code that well since I don't practice that much. I'd be grateful for your advices.

So I am a career switcher, trying to find a Junior SWE position in this god awful market, and am trying to prepare for possible technical interviews. I have found this task rather daunting because the only prominent services for interview practice seem to be Hackerrank and Leetcode. These two services are god awful because every exercise is made unreasonably difficult; if a question doesnt require some advanced mathmatical or scientific background to even understand the problem statement, it requires you to use some ridiculously roundabout method to solve the problem, and will mark the answer wrong if you use a simpler, more practical method. I know from experience completing technical interviews that decent employers dont employ questions like these when interviewing Juniors, and I know from my experience interning on a development team that the ability to solve brain teaser problems is irrelevant to a Junior SWE's Job.

The kinds of problems I want to practice would be something like "create a program that checks if a string is a palindrome" or "create a program that checks which items in an array of strings are represented more than once" (these are actual questions I was given during a technical interview for a Junior SWE position). Can anyone reccomend a book or website that focuses on problems at or around this level?

In school, I learned math best by doing TONS of problems. I am looking for good resources that will allow me to do the same thing as I practice DSA. The ideal platform would have problems that are easier than/about the same as Leetcode easys and can be filtered by topic.

So far, the only thing I have found is GeeksforGeeks. It lets me filter by Basic and also choose different data structures or techniques to filter by.

Any other suggestions?

Hi R

I was looking into LeetCode and it seems the solutions they have there are from “the community”, which has no guarantee that the answers are actually the best solution or even that they are correct.

I’m looking for an alternative platform that also has good challenges, ones that are actually similar to real interview problemas, but that have the “official” resolution explanation, considering the best answer to the problem.

Please, would anyone have any recommendations?

Thank you

is there a website similar to leetcode but with free answers to all the programming problems ?

I want to practice and strengthen my programming/problem solving skills. I’ve heard about Leetcode and how many people recommend it, but it’s not free. Does anyone know any free alternatives that I can try out?

I have been facing trouble with leet code problems and it's frustrating me. I studied and practiced Python from books and online tutorials and couple of my friends suggested me to try LeetCode but now I feel like I'm trying to jump on top of the building without taking the stairs. Please suggests me as to how to progress? Thanks in adv.

I read that Websites like leetcode aren't representative of the type of problems that one will face in a day to day work environment. What would be a more useful way to practice coding and problem solving then?

A lot of people on this sub practice on Leetcode. It is no doubt the best place to practice inter.view questions. However, unless you are a premium user, there isn't a good methodological way to learn algorithms. You can check out https://www.lintcode.com/ladder/2/

They have a special question ladder called "US Giants". It contains just the right amount of easy, medium and hard questions for each topic (most of them from Leetcode). There are 122 questions in total and I did around 80% of them. Almost every new question that I see in my interviews is a variation of what I already did on Lintcode.

P.S - It's free!. Thanks to our Asian friends :)

Hi fellow problem-solvers, I graduated a bootcamp in May and have been tirelessly hunting for a job ever since. I’ve seen several people talk about improving their skills using sandbox-y websites like Leetcode. I’ve got two questions:

1. Of all the websites to practice, which is your preference and why? (Leetcode, codewars, etc…)

2. Some people in this sub have mentioned that employers seeing how much Leetcode problems they’ve solved has helped them land the job. How do you show this to a potential employer? Surely it’s not on your resume, so I’d assume you just mention it during an interview? Maybe on a cover letter?

I should mention that I am aware that the best way to improve is to consistently code and build things. I am doing this and will continue to do so, however sometimes I’d just prefer a shorter practice that isn’t relevant to the projects I’m working on.

I’m open to any answers even if it’s not relevant to the questions and more so pertaining to tips on how to get a job. Thanks in advance!

I am a Software Engineer in the industry for 7 years! Unlike the average individual, I actually like leetcode even though it has no correlation with job performance. It just satisfies my itch of solving problems and having a fast feedback loop: sort of like crossword or sudoku or math puzzles pr

I also like programming languages and like learning exotic languages. Are there sites that are more expansive than leetcode: test file io, or some regex parsing, or date time math or interacting with csv, json, concurrency or dealing with binary data. These will help me learn the capabilities of a new language much faster than just reading a book on the language.

I usually do projects but was wondering if there was something more expansive than leetcode with an autograder that tests some of the things I mentioned. This will satisfy the puzzle itch

Hey 20F here and in my 3rd year. I’m currently grinding Leetcode for internship. My question is would it be worth it to get Leetcode premium? I think it’s too pricey so I’m looking for an alternative. Also where do you guys study for specific questions for specific companies?

I'm only a freshman and started leetcoding and recently past 100 questions. I will keep doing these for a long time but I think there might be some better stuff to do rather than grinding for 4 years everyday. My grades are good

I was reading yet another post about how leetcode, well, it's bad for experienced devs. You can spend quite awhile prepping for it, while having another job, and it's *still* fairly random; the system was setup to weed out false positives, but it's not great for diverse hires or accuracy in general.

An Alternative Approach

I'm going to lay out a day-long interview process, with a 60m screen ahead of time.

For all of this, there's effectively no timer. If you're not gonna get it, you're done, but you're welcome to move at a speed that's entirely comfy for you. This *isn't* a stress test. For any of these interviews, there's usually one interviewer, but there may be two interviewers in one or two of them, to help train new interviewers over time.

• Screen: you're asked to work through two or three of the simplest assignments from an "intro to programming" type course, to prove you can take an idea and write it into code. They may also ask you to define a few things (CS and software engineering jargon), or to talk about your current role.

• Onsite, either two half-days or a full day with breaks and lunch. Start at 9am.

  • They provide a few complex pieces of relatively clean code, and ask "what does this do, let's talk through it", to prove you can go beyond CS 101. Mostly writing. 60m

    • This may go 30m longer; they can ask screen-like questions again, just to confirm you're the person from the screen. "Any odds you could code up a linked list that implements this interface?"

  • (Optional bio break/coffee/etc)

  • They ask to talk about your previous jobs and experience, what was good, what was bad, what you'd do differently if you did it again. Mostly chatting. 90m

  • Noon. ish. First major break: you go to a nice long lunch, where you get paired with someone with a background like yours, to see how it's going for them. Ideally, you get to *choose* your lunch partner from a list. They do *not* take notes on your questions. This cannot count *for* you, so you're free to ask anything. If you say something horrifying (racist, sexist), those get reported in. Otherwise, game on. 60m

  • You take a data structures test, similar to a college midterm. This is probably an 30-60m test, you can take up to two hours. No scores above 90% are counted, so you don't have to memorize !@#$ red-black trees again. The syllabus is available online, this isn't secret sauce. Mostly writing. 60-90m.

  • (Optional bio break/coffee/etc)

  • You do a design interview of some sort. Systems design, API design, product design, whatever. They learn how you build things. Mostly talking. 60-90m.

  • (Optional bio break/coffee/etc)

  • Second major break: you take awhile chatting with another person who works there, over coffee, to ask whatever the hell you want to ask. They take notes on your questions, which count for you. Mostly talking. 60m

  • (Optional bio break/coffee/etc)

  • Wildcard Interview. 60m

Wildcard

While you were in that second break, someone looks at the previous interviews, and thinks "do we need more signal on any one part of this", and asks if you'd be up for an immediate followup interview on X. Alternatively, they ask if you'd be willing to come back in soon for the followup on X; your choice, this is a *full* day.

The 'wildcard interview' is that followup. If the candidate didn't need a followup, the wildcard? It's a training interview, so the company can get new interviewers calibrated.

If the candidate didn't need the wildcard, and the company doesn't want to use it to train, *then* toss in the Leetcode, so we could finally - *finally* - see how it compared head-to-head with other interview styles.

Summary

This runs from 9-5pm, may go to 6pm if the candidate wanted to go a bit slower, allows for tons of breaks, has two different people you can ask questions about the job for more than an hour. It tests code, algorithms, design, working style, soft skills, and allows for both "you drew a shitty interviewer", "you made honest mistakes", and "trains new interviewers".

I'm curious if "simple code" is enough, and I'm betting it probably is, especially if they have a resume to ask questions about *and* can pass the data structures exam. Thoughts?

1. striver a2z data sheet (especially like this)

2. neetcode 150

3. blind 75

share what you have

Is there a platform similar to LeetCode that focuses on training actual language features instead of just algorithm concepts? For instance, the usage of lambda functions, smart pointers, templates in C++ and so on. I find it is way more important to know when to use certain features or design patterns compared to learning some arbitrary algorithm that will not be useful in 99.99% cases in the real world.