I've had great pre-interview conversations with hiring managers discussing technical topics, several concluding with them saying that they'd love to have me on their team. Have had friends/excoworkers vouching for me sometimes. Then I go screw up on the leetcode interview, and that ends the story.
Pretty much have been drilling leetcode every day since my last failure at FB last year. (Bad) luck of the draw saw to it that I drew a question I couldn't tackle.
I did see a post somewhere about someone's recent experience getting jobs at tech companies with minimal to no leetcoding. However he states that the only way it was possible was because he already had FAANGs on his resume and some of these companies were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt due to this.
I know these positions exist in all companies. Find the unseemly but necessary work and deliver. The current CEO of Google worked on Google Toolbar and turned that into Chrome.
You could even go the contractor route for 2 years and try to lever that into a full time role.
The other thing way would be to spend a year diligently leetcoding...