> the handwringing you see on programming forums about the 'leetcode grind'
In fairness and compassion to that crowd, a lot of it comes from the fact that a modern interview for a coveted FAANG job often requires 1-2 LC Medium (or Hard) problems cranked out in 45-60 minutes. Depending on the company and the org, the overall interview loop may well be multiple such one-hour sprints.
It's quite a pressure-cooker of an interview setting. Given that, it's understandable why many people converge on memorizing and brute-force pattern-matching as their interview strategy — if they can just memorize enough, the odds are actually pretty decent. (And the payoff is not bad, either.)
I'd argue that the time pressure in those situations encouraged just trying to substraction or add 1 to the loop's boundary, since it had a good success rate and is much faster than thinking through simulating the loop/algorithm. Learning is rarely rewarded in those interview situations that build on leed code.
In fairness and compassion to that crowd, a lot of it comes from the fact that a modern interview for a coveted FAANG job often requires 1-2 LC Medium (or Hard) problems cranked out in 45-60 minutes. Depending on the company and the org, the overall interview loop may well be multiple such one-hour sprints.
It's quite a pressure-cooker of an interview setting. Given that, it's understandable why many people converge on memorizing and brute-force pattern-matching as their interview strategy — if they can just memorize enough, the odds are actually pretty decent. (And the payoff is not bad, either.)