Not the person you are replying to. But I did it by focusing on learning soft skills and project management skills - even though I am not a project manager.

I focused on small companies before my current job where the director/CTO was looking for people who could demonstrate a history of being “smart and get things done”.

I avoided the leetCode grind by preparing for a couple of years to target the cloud consulting department of the two of the major cloud providers or if necessary one of their partners. I knew that a combination of software development, infrastructure, cloud, and soft skills would give me a competitive advantage.

I studied my ass off! I did 300 LC questions and could finish LC mediums pretty easily and I found that most companies concentrated on easy and medium.

So honest question. I presume you spent months on those LC questions.

Do you feel that they were beneficial in terms of making you a better developer, or did you simply learn a bunch of solutions to puzzles that have no bearing on real world development?

I appreciate the response. Have avoided that so far on principle, but good to know that if push comes to shove there is a way to get hired again.

Dang that's impressive determination.