Ask HN: What have the s/w interviews evolved to :(

Throwaway a/c for obvious reasons. I am a software dev with a few years of exp. and preparing for s/w dev interviews at Facebook, Google, Airbnb et. al.

At my current company I am decent performer and have been working/delivering on some critical projects but some how I find the preparation for these interviews overwhelming. I feel lost with the vast amounts of subject knowledge one needs to acquire to succeed in them.

Some of the problem solving/algorithm questions that are being asked, I find it very hard to figure out the perfect solution leave alone coming up with a solution in the 45min window one is provided. The crazy dp/graph problems that get asked are something I find hard to grapple with.

I am in no way trying to be critical of the interview processes but actually respect them!!! and makes me feel the folks working there are super human.

This is making me very miserable and I am losing my sleep over this and this is effecting my daily job as well; Anyways just wanted to vent out the steam and look for ways other ppl here coped with similar situations and how to be successful.

P.S: IMO, going thru Career Cup and other interview prep material is helpful but awfully falls short of the kind of questions being asked! In fact sometimes I want to walk away from the interviews unless I am in the range of decent ranking topcoder and that makes me question the whole cs career has come to be i.e. does one have to be an elite competition level coder and only then have a fair chance to work in the top companies and whether this really translates to great software contribution.