u/BigGunE

I was thinking about this. In the before times, you could go build your niche projects and use that to get interviews and even pass them by talking about them and your involvement.

How is that working out for recruiters in a world where AI can generate most of the project’s code and even solve technical challenges of the projects!?

Specifically when it comes to scoring points with your listed and demoed projects, how much value did they lose because of AI?

If people can generate projects wholesale like that, wouldn’t it make more sense for companies to double down on leetcode style assessments to screen candidates!?

I realised that my pinky doesn't have the speed or strength! I've been compensating by using the other 3 fingers instead.

Was wondering if there is anything I can do regularly to get the pink to fire the same as the ring finger. My other 3 fingers work as I want them to.

Any specific drills?

Please help

Say I was running a browser on Desktop 1. I want to go to desktop 2 and open the browser again there but have it be independent instance. I should be able to work on it or quit it without doing anything to the one running on desktop 1.

Is that possible? Now I have to drag the browser to the second desktop or switch back and forth between desktops to use the browser! Which defeats the purpose of using separate desktops!

Any suggestions?

I like to use a notebook to sketch things out as I try to understand a problem and work out a solution as I practice verbalising my thoughts.

But it occurred to me that I will not have my notebook in person. Also not sure if they'd be comfortable with me using a notebook during an online interview either.

Am I practicing the wrong way? Do you guys workout the entire solution in your head all the time?

I need advice on how to plan my time and not fall victim to my obsessive tendencies and cause a burnout.

My Goal:
Get ready to interview for software-related jobs from early 2027

How much Leetcoding is enough?

I need to split my available time effectively. I suck at Leetcode so I already started doing it daily but not sure how much is enough for a day. My goal with LeetCode is to reliably solve up to mediums. By that I mean I should be able to solve new mediums >= 80% of the time.

But the problem with Leetcoding is that it can get obsessive and spill over into the time I perhaps should reserve for other obligations that help me work toward the bigger goal. Which brings us to:

Personal Projects

I have some ongoing and planned software projects. In a perfect world, that is all I would bother myself with since I enjoy the thrill of building things. I've also realized that my projects have taught me things that an eternity spent leetcoding cannot! Maybe its because I am not experienced or whatever but I simply need projects to feel like I am advancing as a developer/creator.

Learning Tools & Implementing Theory

There are many concepts, tools, language specific implementation stuff that still don't know much about and hence must set aside time to learn/practice. An example can be say to get better at using profilers to identify performance bottlenecks for my code on my system.

In conclusion, given the above context, how would you split the time spent among these different things?

P.S. I don't care for FANG/MANG jobs. Ideally I want a C++ focused role, scientific computing, robotics, simulations, etc. My educational background is in Engineering but sadly not computer science/software engineering.

In many of the Leetcode problems that require a stack, I've been used a vector as a stack and pretending like it's a stack. Like this:

std::vector<int> stack;
stack.push_back(10); // push operation
stack.pop_back(); // pop operation
stack.back(); // replacement fro top()

Using a vector just allows me to play with the data structure in many more ways if I need to. Should I stick to that or do I need to use the STL stack?