30 Days, 30 Hacks: Mastering Your US Master's Journey

Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s gather around for a tale that is as critical as it is comical, a rite of passage that every aspiring coder must face: The Devil’s Advocate - LeetCode, the online coding platform that is both feared and revered in the world of programming.

Picture this: You're a sleep-deprived, tech enthusiast terrible with time management, eager to conquer the domain of computer science with your coding skills or get a job at FAANG/MAANG whichever you feel is the way to go. You've heard whispers in the tech corridors, rumors of a formidable challenge that all must undertake. Enters LEETCODE - the master of squid games. Weird analogy but it is true isn’t it?

All jokes aside let’s get into the technicalities.

Why is LeetCode so important, you might ask both as a seasoned developer and a entry-level engineer? 

Well, in the digital age, where tech jobs are both coveted and competitive, LeetCode is the crucible where your programming mettle is tested, and your future job/internship prospects hang in the balance. Unfortunately this is the truth for the past 5 years and is probably going to continue as the testing strategy for the next couple years. So let’s understand what LEETCODE is and how can we take advantage of the system.

Employers at the world's top tech companies wave leetcode around like a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory (yes I am a fan of the movie and I’ve watched it multiple times). It's where you prove your worthiness, where the code you write isn't just a means to a statistic; it's a reflection of your coding soul and your dedication.

So does this mean everybody should get a Leetcode premium?

Yes and No, there are certain companies that do not focus much on leetcode and prefer to have development rounds rather than typical Leetcode rounds which you might have faced at some point in your life. You can start off with Leetcode free tier, try to practice through the easy questions available to you, if you feel you have a chance of cracking medium level questions go for a premium because then you know you are going to push yourself and achieve results quickly. Or you could be somebody like me who believes that if you pay for something expensive you are going to end up using it. At the end of the day each Master’s student is bound to purchase leetcode premium at some point in their journey.

How do I get a discount on Leetcode?

This is the best way to get the cheapest leetcode premium - https://leetcode.com/student/, all you have to do is collect 50 students who are interested in leetcode premium and ask them to sign up through the referral link and everybody can take advantage of the discount. Ideally you’ll see a lot of people trying to get people to join your group, I’d suggest that you be the first few to have 10+ people signed up that way it’s easier.

Or another approach is to purchase leetcode premium from India which is relatively cheaper ( 😛 ).

What is the ideal approach to conquer leetcode?

Even if I tried to tell you I wouldn’t be able to convince you that this is the way forward. But read through this link I haven’t come across a better explanation by any candidate - https://leetcode.com/discuss/career/450215/How-to-use-LeetCode-to-help-yourself-efficiently-and-effectively-(for-beginners).

If you still want to know what I did, I can discuss that in brief:

Essentially I started with Neetcode, leetcode’s biggest competitor in my opinion, you might think it is AlgoExpert, I do not believe so, I’ve tried all the platforms and I believe Neetcode and Leetcode is the way to move forward.
My strategy to learn leetcode as a begineer was to go through neetcode’s videos. I used to spend hours watching those 3 minute long videos see how the questions were solved and used to attempt 5 easy level questions the next day. I continued this for 2 weeks and then I started with the Neetcode roadmap - https://neetcode.io/roadmap. Once I completed the roadmap I moved on to the medium and the hard level questions on leetcode and never looked back at the easy questions. Each question (any level) I ever attempted I had it documented in a register with notes that had the following pointers - Question, Questions Number, What I understood, What was the brute-force approach and How can I optimize my approach. This helped me review the questions before any interview and I was able to ace most of the interviews I appeared for during my Master’s. Your journey could be different from mine but at the end of the day do not let leetcode be your achilles heel. As much as you might hate doing questions on a daily basis, it does help during the interviews. Even in the development process I think it helped me cover edge cases when solving Jira tickets. Do not invest in leetcode completely, invest your time in projects as well if you want to be a successful developer, stay tuned for tomorrow’s newsletter, I’ll discuss which projects to do as a software developer and as a data engineer.

If you would want to know more about this or require help, please reach out to me through topmate. Special Newsletter subscriber discount - I’ll give you the session for free. 🤫 I am willing to do mock interviews for free if it helps.

Topmate Link: https://topmate.io/manik_taneja3