Grind Leetcode or Build Projects?

Hi all. This is a common conundrum I faced early into my career, and hope this video resolves it.

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[NeetCode]

Great video! For the over achievers i would also recommend trying to make projects that have a chance of being successful (i.e. getting real users or customers). Worst case you end up with a resume project, best case you create a job for yourself.

[siddharthsingh]

"Projects get you to the door, but leetcode gets your through the door". What an amazing line!

[sunyboy]

Wasn't even looking for this video but I really want to say:

Thanks for respecting my time and spilling all the facts as quickly as possible, most youtubers would find a way to drag this out into a 20 minute video.

[soupnoodles]

"Projects get you to the door... But leatcode gets you *through* the door"
- This is wonderful

[radumotrescu]

In 6 years of professional work I've encountered leetcode-style problems maybe once. That's working in Europe for corporations and for US startups. Modern software development is about finding the right tool for the job, knowing how to unit test, asking the right questions and not being a pain in the ass to work with. Every aspiring software engineer wants FANG, but 90% of the programming jobs are just writing that 150th ORM class in Java or that 50th CRUD flow in Javascript. Building and contributing to actual projects is much harder than just grinding leetcode because you won't have the exact requirements, the start will be either from complete scratch (and the plan is to build a maintainable code base) or you will be dumped in a huge code base (where the tech debt is large and just figuring out where to put a piece of code takes hours), and you WILL HAVE to deal with actual people (each with their own interests).

That being said, data structures and algorithm problems will put you in the right mindset and will make you aware of certain patterns that otherwise would just be complete nonsense at first sight.

[vercolit]

Personally, I think that making real projects is significantly more important compared to leetcode if you want to be an actually good software engineer. Leetcode is useful for interviews, but in practice, you don't need to use hyperoptimised data structures for niche problems.

[milenkopizdic]

Build projects.

Meaningful projects with not an extreme scale. You can then make a small business off it and start from there, and even if it fails, you still have something for yourself and you at least tried. Grinding Leetcode is like wanting to become a professional boxer and only hitting the punching bag. Sure it's far from useless, but it doesn't give you the full experience of being in the ring. Building projects is like sparring with a partner; it's where you truly test and hone your skills.
It exposes you to real-world challenges and scenarios that you can't simulate by just practicing algorithms. In the same way a boxer can't fully prepare for a match by just hitting a punching bag, a developer can't fully prepare for the tech industry by only grinding Leetcode. Both are important, but the latter provides a more holistic experience.

So, step into the 'ring', build projects, and truly prepare yourself for what's ahead.

[aahilrafiq]

Im Actually solving Neetcode 150, its a set of really good questions and most commonly seen patterns, i would recommend anyone to solve it .Im actually able to solve questions in contests better than when i used to solve questions randomly

[_ash]

Makes a one-minute video but summarizes and provides an exit route in the first 10 seconds. What a legend!

[aazendude]

I'm currently at a point where I have been ceaselessly studying for about 11 months and just the other day, I had a sort of obvious realization that something I had overlooked when trying to figure out how to write code is the power of simple memorization. I have spent a lot of time in the past, teaching myself guitar and piano and in order to get good at it, it's necessary to first be able to play other people's songs by memory. You learn a song, play along to it a bunch of times, then play it on your own all the time and then eventually, you can extract bits and pieces of the techniques used in the song, to make your own songs. So, I started applying this idea to writing programs. It may seem to make no sense to memorize how to write someone else's number guessing game in Java, but it helps you to internalize the basic idea more so than just writing it once and sitting there thinking about how it works. And if you're like me and have spent lots of time learning multiple languages, you can then rewrite the program in C, Python, JavaScript or whatever. Then also alter the program and try to come up with as many variations as you can. Then eventually, you can extract certain ideas and concepts from this very simple program that you know by heart and apply them elsewhere. Like I said, it's so obvious that most people probably overlook the idea.

[cody_codes_youtube]

I agree with this advice. Especially the part of having something to show someone. The biggest hurdle isn’t the algorithm or patterns of a project; but actually FINISHING or publishing something you worked on. That shows you can follow through and you will learn much.

[renni]

Definitely make projects your priority. I think "grinding" leetcode is stupid, but doing 1-3 per day is good practice. It'll prepare you for interviews, get your more comfortable with actually programming (since like, 90% of projects is either boilerplate, figuring out how libraries work, planning, debugging etc.) and give you a more computer sciency way of thinking about things. Like, my problem solving skills have skyrocketed since using leetcode, but projects based learning is the best way to learn anything.

[exja]

I really struggle to get motivated to build something that is just a clone of an existing idea. But it's obviously quite difficult to come up with an original idea that is actually useful.

[penciltip]

short simple and straight to the point, love this man.|
the timing couldn't be more perfect

[HammadArif]

No bs, just straight to the point. Thanks for the advice.

[amitkulkarni]

Definitely projects. Lot of companies don't even conduct leetcode-style interviews but having those personal projects will get you that interview.

[Camelot]

I love your content. Very brief and straight to the point. Keep it up man, you're amazing.

[pemifo]

Thank you for giving the main answer within the first few seconds of the video. You gave the answer without further ado and then explained it in detail for those who wanted to listen. I liked your video!

[HakuzaPK]

Appreciate the brevity of this guy’s vids so so much

[trenbolonewings]

Spot on. I’d go as far as to say don’t focus on how complex a project is but how it supplements your own story/brand. Group projects are a plus, shows you can work on a team.