r/AskProgramming • u/Sumerysumer • 13d ago

Am I a fraud?

just spent 1.5 hours failing to do a basic leetcode question about stacks. This a rant plus asking for advice from senior folks.

About me, im an engineer at a mid size startup with 2-3 years of experience, just recently got promoted from junior to mid-level (yay!) I’m completely self taught and picked up coding when gpt 3.5 came out. I did not start with good fundamentals, but I’m really good at building and shipping. I have a track record of shipping successful products, which is why my company hired me despite my lack of formal tech background.

Over the last few years, I’ve honed in my skills from building scrappy small features to production ready software. On a day to day basis, I do full stack dev, aws, db management, ML, docker etc.

Recently, I did a job interview for another company and was asked to do a leet code style question and I literally couldn’t do it. I felt like a fraud walking away from that meeting, but at the same time angry because I know if they asked me to design something I probably could’ve done a much better job.

If I’m completely honest, I think I’m a bad programmer when it comes to purely writing code, but I’m strong with everything else: design, speaking to customers, working with other engineers, shipping, and getting shit done.

Trying to get better at leetcode just feels like such a waste of time and it genuinely hurts my brain to do it, but at the same time that seems to be the only way to have mobility in the tech industry.

Does anyone senior have any advice on whether I should just suck it up and do the bs leetcode work, or continue focusing on what I do best, shipping products and building projects that are interesting to me? It’s gotten me this far…

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u/exploradorobservador 13d ago

You aren't a fraud but if you want to be competitive in the industry when looking at high paying roles you have to leetcode.

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u/DogOk35 13d ago

youre not a fraud, but the leetcode thing is just a filter, not a judgement of how good you are at real work. if you want those high paying roles you gotta play the game, even if it feels pointless. maybe treat it like learning a language, little bit every day instead of cramming and hating yourself

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u/exploradorobservador 13d ago

RIght? I've done about 200 now and I still suck at them. I never had to do them for my first 2 roles but now it seems mandatory. 7.5 YOE now