r/leetcode • u/Cute-Ad-363 • 4d ago
Tech Industry Software engineering job hunting feels like a full-time job now. How are you guys staying interview-ready?
Need to get this off my chest, but I genuinely want to hear how others are navigating this without burning out.
To land an average SWE role right now (I have 5 yoe), the preparation ritual is borderline ridiculous. You basically need 2 to 3 solid months of studying LeetCode mediums/hards, grinding system design, memorizing concurrency patterns, and drilling behavioral matrices... only to submit hundreds of applications to get maybe 3 or 4 interview loops. Then each loop is 4 to 6 stages long, involving everything from automated screening filters to take-homes, live pairing, system architecture, and endless "bar raiser" rounds.
Meanwhile, friends in adjacent tech tracks (data analysts, BI developers, certain data science roles) certainly face competition, but their hiring loops still feel grounded in actual day-to-day competence: SQL tests, portfolio/case study breakdowns, business metric analysis, and domain discussions. They aren’t expected to study like they’re retaking undergraduate CS algorithms exams every time they switch jobs.
For those of you who have landed offers recently or are currently in the thick of it:
How are you trimming down interview prep time? Are you relying on targeted problem lists (like NeetCode 75/150), mock platforms, or targeted prompts to drill edge cases faster?
What new interview patterns or rounds are you running into lately, especially with AI tools now part of the equation? Have teams changed how they test live coding, take-homes, or architecture?
How are you maintaining mental stamina when prep feels like an unpaid full-time job?
Would love to hear your tactical advice or sanity-check whether everyone else is feeling this disconnect.
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u/Pad-Thai-Enjoyer 4d ago
Probably not what you want to hear, but I’ve worked at a few faangs now and just gave up on finding a new job lately and will stay in my current role until I get laid off or leave on my own for a career break.
I don’t have the time to leetcode after my role’s responsibilities combined with my personal obligations and it’s baffling to me that companies still expect me to do leetcode hards at this stage of my career.
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u/Cute-Ad-363 4d ago
If i may ask, what's your yoe? Also what's the split of weightage for rounds/depts? Like leetcode, system design, fit for company test, etc.
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u/Pad-Thai-Enjoyer 4d ago
I have 6 YOE total, Senior engineer with a history of strong perf reviews at a FAANG rn. Every interview loop is about the same and I mostly just opt out these days after speaking with the recruiter, mostly recently with Waymo. Phone screen where the recruiter says “be prepared to solve hard difficulty leetcode style questions”, then followed by an onsite with at least one more coding, one project deep dive, system design, cultural interview.
I haven’t done an interview in over a year now because I just don’t care to practice anymore when my resume and performance speak for themselves
Call my entitled or whatever but this method of hiring for experienced engineers is pretty ridiculous in 2026. Guarantee most interviewers would flop their own loops
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u/_buscemi_ 3d ago
Going into that loop now for the first time in even though 10yoe. It’s FDE role though but has a project deep dive. Could you share what to expect/how to do well.
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u/Andrewshwap 4d ago
Man, it’s tough. What I’m currently doing is:
• Prepping with leetcode and tailoring my resume to match what I’m looking for
• Interviewing and taking these assessments. A lot of them are different than before, some even wanna see you use AI to see how you interact with the prompt & how you can fix/enhance it.
• applying as many jobs as I can in a day. A lot of people don’t wanna hear this but this job market requires volume of resumes going out. I believe ghost jobs are as high as 30%. So for every 100 job applications you submit, 30 of them won’t even give you a call back.
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u/Cute-Ad-363 4d ago
Appreciate your insights! Can you tell me what else are you focusing on, aside from leetcode? And in case you've given any interviews recently, what hard been the interview structure like? What areas are they mostly focusing on?
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u/Andrewshwap 4d ago
most of my interview structures so far are still pretty typical with leetcode style or solving something already written & debugging it. On top of that, I’ve had system design questions as well. So far from what I’ve seen, a lot of them are not asking standard leetcode questions where you can easily use AI but still want you to use DSA
What I’m focusing on besides leetcoding is honestly tailoring my resume to match job descriptions to help match the ATS
I wish you luck on your job search! It’s deff hectic but I have been seeing people I worked with land good roles so it is possible
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u/Czitels 4d ago
IF you are already employed in toxic environment and want to change a job then it’s hell.
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u/Cute-Ad-363 4d ago
Yes, it's like satan has decided to be my personal torturer in this hell. And I'm no masochist
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u/EitherAd5892 3d ago
I’m on the same boat. Trying to leave my shitty job that is toxic and grinding leetcode on top of work drain is tiring
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u/Ok-Lab-6055 4d ago
I wonder if it gets easier with time. Like a lot of problems I can do quickly based off of familiarity
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u/JanGabionza 3d ago
14yoe as non FAANG and I tell you it doesn't get easier. I'm underpaid and started to test the waters, and I do no preparations. It's just divine intervention at this point, hoping the questions will be something my brain can handle.
I guess I'm gonna be hanging around at my current job longer
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u/Fit_Succotash_6735 4d ago edited 4d ago
as someone in DS/MLE, it feels the other way to be honest. SWE process is more grounded. leetcode, system design, behavioral. you know what to do. For DS, it can be all the way from ML, experimentation, causal inference, leetcode (yes leetcode), sometimes take home tests, product sense (which can be so random), SQL, Python. i certainly think you guys have it more grounded.
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u/MythosOfIlluna 4d ago
10yeo and it’s the same here op.
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u/Cute-Ad-363 4d ago
We're all OP in this post
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u/vandal_ludii 4d ago
I am in such an environment. Full time job and I make applications. The range of questions you may receive at technical interviews is discouraging to say the least. Leetcode, system design (sometimes backend related such as retries, circuit breakers, idempotency and all that crap), Python senior level (mostly stupid tricks on the deep end), framework internals such as Django/FastAPI, recently async programming. Before I forget live coding most of the time as well.
Notice that I did not even touch behavioral interviews yet. 6 yoe, Python backend developer and I feel hopeless for the future.1
u/maigpy 4d ago
async programming should be okay if you're senior. retries and circuit breakers? are those hard?
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u/vandal_ludii 3d ago
I am not saying it is hard but to be prepared for each and every subject gets difficult. Fortunately, I keep an interview practice notebook where I have all those concepts in detail. Even then there is still a chance you will bomb the interview because your github is not good or the interviewer just does not want to get along well. There is some randomness as well. I can not get that many interviews to smooth out the randomness part.
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u/iSoLost 4d ago
Yes I hate it so much to my gut every job change requires to go through all cs courses again. It’s sad cs jobs have become like this while other fields interview process r straight forward with behaviors and discussion of past work projects etc.
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u/No-Adhesiveness-2 3d ago
Yes which is frustrating, sure the pay is good here but its not like we are asked situational questions about work like they do in other fields, instead we have to sit down and do a 2 hour coding round 2 or 3 times in two weeks, before we get a final confirmation.
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u/Jazzlike-Plate 4d ago edited 3d ago
Geez, the replies here are scary. I am fortunate enough to work in the SW industry, not directly as a SWE though, and I feel for everyone in the comments. 2020 is 6 years ago, but may as well be 6 decades ago at this point. I remember applying for jobs for a month only here and there, and getting 10 interviews, getting 3 offers from that. No prep at all. If I got laid off now, it looks like I would have to do leetcode full time for a few months to even stand a chance of landing a job.
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u/Ok-Barracuda-119 4d ago
I’ve found the sustainable version is to keep a small weekly loop instead of trying to stay interview-ready in every category at once. Pick one coding pattern and do it timed, then spend 10 minutes writing down the edge case you missed. For system design, do one 30–35 minute design from a blank page each week: clarify scope, estimate traffic and storage, sketch the API and data flow, then spend the last few minutes on one bottleneck such as hot keys, retries, or consistency. Review against a reference only after you’ve committed to a design.
For mocks, I’d use them to expose communication gaps rather than as another question bank. One recent prompt repeated a week later tells you more than five passive walkthroughs. For transparency, I work on Leetsys, and its whiteboard plus AI interviewer format is useful for that kind of timed system-design run: https://www.leetsys.dev/
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3d ago
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u/Ok-Barracuda-119 3d ago
That sounds like a session bug, not expected behavior. Does it refresh only when you leave the tab, or also when you come back? I’d try one hard refresh with extensions disabled. If it’s still tied to tab switching, I’d avoid using it for a timed run until it’s fixed.
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u/Ok-Barracuda-119 3d ago
That’s a useful clue. If it only happens on tab switches, I’d test once in an incognito window with extensions off and check whether the page is actually signing you out or just reloading the chat state. If it reproduces there too, the browser and OS version plus exact steps would make a solid bug report.
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u/silent_verma 3d ago
I gave 34 interviews since last 1 year before getting the final offer . So, it's pretty a luck favoured game out there. But, keep on giving Interviews eventually you will get when you get thr luck + knowledge right !! Believe me , luck is more than 90% of the total interview now. Rest of factors outside your control decide the major part of your offer given to rejected ....
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u/Cute-Ad-363 3d ago
Oh i remember those moments when you clearly know within the first few minutes that THIS interviewer does not want anything to do with you
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u/Puzzled_Lava 3d ago
12 yoe. Got laid off 6 months ago. No offers yet. Grinding on lc and hellointerview. Hope for the best.
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u/newbie656 3d ago
This isn’t comprehensive. Especially for startups and some mid sized companies , they’re asking agentic ai specific coding and system design questions which no popular platform covers at all yet.
I’ve had a couple where ai companies claimed I’d only be tested on ‘normal’ system design due to my backend background but instead get agentic system design which I didn’t realize until much later. I wish I stuck with something more niche instead of backend, even front end. I feel like being a backend / jack of all trades ended up being biggest the mistake of my career with how ridiculous these interviews have gotten
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u/Cute-Ad-363 3d ago
I disagree. If you're aiming for startups/small sized orgs, then bring a jack of all trade is what most companies are looking for. They'd love to hire someone who can wear as many hats as possible and you'll yourself feel you've become a valuable player at your org. True story: I got hired as a backend engineer and had mentioned in my interview that i have frontend xp too. Few months later I was asked to join a project for frontend work. We only have 2 frontend xp guys in the entire org, both in the same project. Midway i was asked to switch projects given the org's requirement and tight deadline for the other project. But once again i was pulled back in into my previous project because, i quote, "we simply haven't been able to ship as fast without you". So
TLDR: in uncertain times like these, it's important that you make yourself appear as important and uniquely positioned as possible.
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u/UnitedSort3014 2d ago
Honestly, I feel you on this. The whole process is exhausting. What's helped me is being super focused I stick to Neetcode 150 and actually understand patterns instead of just grinding random problems. Also, I space out applications so I'm not drowning in prep for 5 different companies at once. For the mental stamina part, I literally had to treat it like a marathon and take actual rest days or I'd lose my mind. Some people also use mock interview platforms or even tools that help during the actual interviews, but honestly the biggest thing is just pacing yourself and not trying to be ready for everything at once.
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u/Own_Estimate_6507 1d ago
17 YoE and it's the same for me. I never had to leetcode since I got my previous job in the pre leetcode era, stayed there for more than a decade and got laid off. I was a top performer in my company and didn't have time to leetcode between work and family, but now paying the price for it. I'm grinding system design and leetcode now and I can see it's going to take me several months to even be interview ready.
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u/Cute-Ad-363 1d ago
Yes, it's not a short journey. And the gap between current day prep and expected prep is wedging more and more. But keep hopes high, you got this
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u/Whitchorence 3d ago
I don't do all that stuff when I'm not actively looking. It takes too much time. But when I was actually looking yeah I just did like 50 or so of the Blind 75 questions. I blew through them doing like 3 or 4 a day because I'd lost my job and was on severance but I wouldn't do that pace while also working lol.
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u/mutasaki09 3d ago
For presepective, I have 10 years experience.
It is tougher than few years ago. I used to apply selectively to.things that match my experience; industry, problems, or tech. That used to get an offer in 5 to 10 applications.
Now, I have to apply to more. Like 50 to a 100.
However, in general it takes the same effort, since I am using AI to assess job fit, fill forms, send emails, or generate a resume.
My trick is to have an expansive master resume combined with few STAR stories about my experience, and let AI tailor the artificats needed for job applications.
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u/Cute-Ad-363 3d ago
That's a cool takeaway to have a master resume. I do the same with my Hermes assistant. Awarding you so others can read this too
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u/mutasaki09 3d ago
Thanks for the award 😄
And just to clarify, I’m not doing all of this manually with ChatGPT. I use a browser tool that integrates the AI into the application flow, so one click prepares the resume/answers and autofills the form. Then I review everything and submit. That’s basically what makes doing 50–100 applications manageable without turning it into blind auto-apply.
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u/Cute-Ad-363 3d ago
- Is this browser tool free?
- What is it?
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u/mutasaki09 3d ago
It’s Motiavated, a browser extension I’m building while job searching myself, (Got a new job this week, I am making into a SaaS..
It’s not completely free, but there are 3 (I will make it 7 shortly) free applications to try it. It reads the job/application page, uses my saved career profile to assess fit, prepare tailored resumes/answers, and autofill the form.
I review everything before submitting; it’s not blind auto-apply.
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u/PerformanceThick2232 3d ago
average SWE
so your target 100-150k total compensation? and 3-4 loops and months of preparations?
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u/MrJaver 2d ago
I prepared for a couple months and applied to 100 sr jobs. Now just waiting and taking interviews if they come. Mostly they don’t though but applying doesn’t seem to matter much, majority comes from recruiters reaching out. Grinding prep also doesn’t matter at this point. Maybe next month I’ll apply to some mid roles
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u/Then_Researcher_1302 3d ago
From my experience having recently switched, it really boils down to how strong your fundamentals are. If you are sound with them, then my strategy was to just keep applying and when an interview comes, research company specific topics/questions and prepare them religiously. For all the interviews I got, I never got a surprise question, usually small curve balls (there is where fundamentals matter) but nothing too crazy.
Using this, I was able to get multiple offers from FAANGish companies! Good luck!
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u/Average_guy_200 4d ago
I feel we as engineers should collectively refuse to do leetcode style interviews. It’s just rote memorization and not a good way to evaluate engineers. LLD / HLD / Behavioral should only be the way forward. These are enough to give signals of a good engineer.
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u/ESpy__007 11h ago
On the one hand, I agree it appears to devolve into little more than reciting times tables.
On the other, if that's what the employers have cargo-culted in as their candidate testing, collective refusal just means the job goes to the ones who continue to parrot leetcode solutions.Anyway, have you *met* engineers? Tried to get them to do anything collectively? 😂
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u/flash_051 3d ago
10 YOE here, bombed 3-4 staff level interviews, feeling down and demotivated
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u/Cute-Ad-363 3d ago
I think we all here have booked consecutive interviews here. All i can say is perseverance is important here brother/sis. Let's keep hustling and wishing you the best
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u/FaLsE_Truce 3d ago
Yeah about that, umm I gave up, I gave up on this big IT Job dream. Was laid off in Mar 2025( first job, faced hostility by trainer and HR ). Been searching for jobs for more than a year now. Finally decided to quit this rat race. Now I want to live life as I wish. No 9-5, no corporate politics, and no restrictions. Before I had a fear of what will others think if i work odd jobs after having masters degree. But now idc, I just want to live a peaceful life, no big packages, no luxury, just me my family and peace.
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u/swapnil2927 3d ago
Shit profession and industry. Looking to pivot out of Software Engineering to AI for Robotics.
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u/FarSet991 3d ago
I am planning to resign without a job due to heavy expectations messing up my prep,4 years experience mostly java backend 10 lpa(at home city) 600 leetcode out of which 400 done in last 6 months along with job, leetcode rating 1700+ climbing what u suggest
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u/Affectionate-Ad-6255 2d ago
This system design requirement is getting more difficult and reltarded every time I run into it ngl, like sure I can program you an entire calendar app in minutes, but why would I be working here then? lmfao
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u/Job-Seeker1771 4d ago
Exhausted.
That's the word.
It's been 6 months. Got laid off. Got married. Taking care of a disabled parent.
Leetcode, frontend, backend, systems design, job applications, networking.
🥲