Agree! I bought that book (Cracking the Coding Interview) just to see what the fuss was about it. That thing is massive, dense, and has enough sample problems to keep a person busy for hundreds of hours...
Those hundreds of hours are way better spent building a side project...and will speak volumes more than trudging through a book to help you "hack" the technical interview.
This is the struggle and the reality of the competition. You have CTCI and leecode on top of that. Plus, to stand out with recruiters, you also want to contribute to open source code and/or have side projects. All of this on top of full-time school and a part-time job was extremely overwhelming. Now that I'm working full-time it's much more manageable.
Also, luck is hugely important during the interview process of your interviewer and the questions you get.
I've found that my perfect balance is just 30 mins a night, 4 nights a week.
Its a short enough session that I can fit it in without resenting having to do it and miss out on family stuff.
I normally go into the session thinking that I cannot be bothered but usually walk away having enjoyed it and I definitely feel the benefit of it at work.
Working on a side project that you will also actively use makes it much more attractive! Example : I play no limit holdem at my spare time and I am really disappointed that the majority of poker software is for windows only. So I am trying to develop the web-version of Flopzilla(http://www.flopzilla.com) by using modern tech - angular on the front-end, python for the back-end, et cetera.
That's really cool! I used PokerStrategy's equity calculator for a long time and must have thought "hey, I should build one of those to learn how Monte Carlo works" around 100 times.
I'd love to be able to think of a side project I'm actually enthused to work on. I don't know if I'm burning out but nothing really seems interesting enough to me to put the effort in.
At this point I don't feel guilty anymore when I'm not feeling motivated, because I know it'll be back some time soon. At the beginning I'd get worried I'd never be motivated again, now I just treat it as a "part-time vacation". Read history books, play tennis, cycle and enjoy my family. :)
I have yet to find a personal project which I am legitimately interested in doing. Time and time again I'll simply start the project, do 30-60 minutes and then never look at it again. The whole process isn't something I find enjoyable unless I'm working with someone else.
A difficult problem I come across in work is something I cannot bare to do in my spare time, and it's rather annoying as I used to really enjoy programming when I didn't know how to do it.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 37.6 ms ] threadThose hundreds of hours are way better spent building a side project...and will speak volumes more than trudging through a book to help you "hack" the technical interview.
Also, luck is hugely important during the interview process of your interviewer and the questions you get.
Its a short enough session that I can fit it in without resenting having to do it and miss out on family stuff.
I normally go into the session thinking that I cannot be bothered but usually walk away having enjoyed it and I definitely feel the benefit of it at work.
At this point I don't feel guilty anymore when I'm not feeling motivated, because I know it'll be back some time soon. At the beginning I'd get worried I'd never be motivated again, now I just treat it as a "part-time vacation". Read history books, play tennis, cycle and enjoy my family. :)
A difficult problem I come across in work is something I cannot bare to do in my spare time, and it's rather annoying as I used to really enjoy programming when I didn't know how to do it.
But they all seem so forced and artificial and hype marketing garbage.
Reading online discussions I get the impression that everyone's working on such useful products but I'm not seeing the projects around.