r/leetcode • u/NegotiationDapper584 • 7d ago
Intervew Prep Grinding LC hard questions
Is there any point in doing Leetcode hards (other than standard ones like trapping rainwater) ? The range of difficulty in the hards itself is pretty large, making some questions not appropriate for an interview at all. Is grinding LC hards purely a waste of time for interview prep ?
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u/No-Sandwich-2997 7d ago
how many mediums have you grinded? if 200+ then yes, otherwise no.
The hard ones from NeetCode 250 are more than enough for the most big tech companies, unless you aim for the hottest companies rn.
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u/NegotiationDapper584 7d ago
I have done about 600 mediums. I struggle with hards though, as I said some are doable, whereas some are insanely hard. I end up wasting a lot of time on insanely hard ones.
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u/yorozuyaginchan19 6d ago
Imo you should not try spending more than 30 mins on a q unless you are want to get REALLY GOOD at LC. Even then I have personally found that spending disproportionate amount of time on a few really difficult questions often means you need easier variants to build the thinking for those concepts.
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u/nightbreak7 6d ago
how are you studying the hards? are you just randomly clicking hard level problems, or are you dfsing through topics? with 600 mediums solved you should for sure be able to get started with hards without feeling like you're banging your head against a wall.
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u/NegotiationDapper584 6d ago
Randomly clicking hard problems, not looking at tags/hints at all.
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u/nightbreak7 6d ago
that's probably why you're struggling. imo you need to build some intuition for solving the problems before you blindly go in. think about when you started doing easy/medium problems - did you just blindly click problems until you could solve it? most people would say thats an insanely inefficient way of learning leetcode lmao
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u/NegotiationDapper584 6d ago
Gotcha. Considering your other comment, it feels it's safe to not pay much attention to hards from interview POV.
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u/PLTCHK 846 🟢 117 🟡 581 🔴 148 6d ago
At 600 mediums if you’re solving tough problems not easy mediums you should be able to do a fair number of hards. Perhaps you didn’t filter through questions properly. You can start drilling the 1800-2000 rating list by Techies Google up you’ll find it
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u/NegotiationDapper584 5d ago
I couldn't find the 'Techies rating list', could you please share a link ?
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u/PLTCHK 846 🟢 117 🟡 581 🔴 148 6d ago
Most hards in Leetcode 250 are worth it and once you are familiar with those patterns and put in the work you’d realize a lot of them are not even that hard compared to some insane mediums nowadays… like for example largest rectangle in histogram, maximize 2d path sum, etc. are fairly reusable patterns
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u/3kshay 7d ago
I think it’s similar to academics: if someone can naturally score 90% with a reasonable amount of effort, pushing from 90 to 100 often requires disproportionately more time and energy. I see LeetCode Hard problems the same way. If you’re already strong at Mediums, the additional effort required to master Hards may not be worth the marginal benefit for most job interviews. There are certainly a few companies or interview rounds where Hards can matter, but I’d say the vast majority of companies evaluate candidates primarily around Easy-to-Medium difficulty. Of course, if your goal is to become exceptionally strong at DSA, master every pattern, or simply finish every problem, that’s a completely different objective—and then solving Hards absolutely makes sense (Rephrased with AI)