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7.6.4. Is It Worth Doing LeetCode?

“LeetCode questions” or algorithmic questions are designed to evaluate an engineer’s understanding of core computer science concepts, such as data structures and algorithms, by asking the participant to complete a code problem with the best possible time and space complexity.

You’re likely to encounter these types of questions in two scenarios:

  • Automated online assessments
  • Whiteboard-style interviews

How Much LeetCode Practice Do You Need?​

The amount of LeetCode practice you need depends entirely on your goals.

If your goal is to get into some large tech company with a notable name like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc., or some company in the Bay Area of the United States, then yeah… you should follow a LeetCode study plan and do a minimum of 1–2 problems daily.

However, if you are a student and your goal is to find a job in your local city or you’ve never worked before, the reality is you don’t need to regularly solve medium-hard LeetCode questions. Your local area is far more likely to value communication skills and your ability to build real software over whether you can solve obscure algorithm problems.

Regardless of how much LeetCode you feel you need, it’s also important to recognize that practicing algorithm-based questions is only one aspect of how you should prepare for technical interviews.

In regards to LeetCode, here is my advice:

  • At the very least, you need to practice enough to confidently code under pressure using one common programming language.
  • You should practice code problems on a variety of platforms instead of just LeetCode to avoid becoming overly comfortable with the LeetCode question style.

What’s Wrong With LeetCode?​

LeetCode questions fail to evaluate a candidate’s domain knowledge or their ability to design and build real software—skills that actually matter when hiring for software engineering roles.

If you really think about it, questions focused on optimizing time and space complexity are really just math problems in disguise.

While they do help assess a candidate’s knowledge of computer science concepts, the reality is that candidates, driven by the desire to ace interviews, turn to pattern recognition-based studying to memorize solutions and guarantee success.

The reality is that if you were to ask a candidate if they could solve a LeetCode hard and they actually knew the answer instantly, they probably memorized the solution.

I personally almost see it as a red flag if a developer is only doing LeetCode questions instead of working on real projects.

The Recent Impact of AI​

A recent trend in hiring is that some companies are shifting away from straightforward algorithm-based questions because AI tools have made it way easier to cheat or easily solve these questions.

To counter this, companies are designing coding problems that are intentionally challenging for AI to tackle. For example, some use overly complex or “wordy” prompts to confuse AI, while others require strong visual problem-solving skills—an area where AI still falls short.