There is SO much more to coding than algo's. Those looking to apply clever algo's that give a O(n log n) solution to a problem where n is never greater than 20 are hurting the industry. Give me simple to understand, works, and you saved us a P1 and thousands of dollars not trying to understand the clever algo. In 10 years of coding, the number of times I needed a clever algo can be counted on two hands. Leet coding is fir a lack of better measures.

The bicycle analogy is interesting, it us more like getting someone on a time trial bike and checking if they can hit 25 mph. That counts for almost nothing when doing a downhill mountain bike course. Can you communicate to people clearly? Can you convey expectations? Can you write simple and easy to understand TESTS?? Leet code is part of a cottage industry for interview styles that faang employees for lack of anything better.

I did one faang interview and omg I bombed so badly. A week prior, I did another with the same company and they couldn't stop calling me asking me to stop interviewing and work for them. The hiring manager wrote a love letter of how much I'd enjoy it there. It's crao, half of the senior engineers at that company can't pass their own interviews, it's a broken system. You can't know if a dev us good until at least 3 months after hire, if not 6.

> Give me simple to understand, works, and you saved us a P1 and thousands of dollars not trying to understand the clever algo. In 10 years of coding, the number of times I needed a clever algo can be counted on two hands.

This reminds me of an old anecdote:

Beginner programmers pump out 100 lines of good code a week. Journeymen programmers do 1,000. Master programmers do -100.

It's the same sentiment as the famous Churchillian quip: “I am going to give a long speech today; I haven’t had time to prepare a short one.”

I didn't know that one. "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter" is from a Blaise Pascal quote "Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte." which translates to "I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter."

You are setting yourself up for failure with the "I want FAANG money & benefits" right from the get go. That happens to the top 1%, all other work their asses off or get lucky.

But I think you are doing your now not_future_colleagues a solid by giving up. If you are that square to think there is only one way to reach the "prestige, benefits and pay of Google" and that is by excelling at some Leetcoding pissing context: I see you not solve issues that are exciting to solve which is exactly what I like to see in programmers.