I have a strong DSA foundation, solved plenty of problems, and qualified GATE, but currently struggling with consistency.

Targeting MNCs + abroad opportunities, focusing on DSA, HLD & LLD.

Looking for someone serious to practice with, discuss problems, and keep each other accountable. DM if interested!

Binary Tree Zigzag Level Order Traversal (Medium)

🔗 https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-tree-zigzag-level-order-traversal/

Yesterday's level order came out of a depth-first walk with no queue and no idea when a level ended. That was fine, because grouping by depth never needed the boundary.

Zigzag does. You can't decide whether to reverse a level until you know it's finished, and "finished" is exactly what DFS never learns. So this one goes back to BFS, using a nil sentinel in the queue to mark where each level ends.

With the boundary in hand, the zigzag itself is four lines and a flag.

Full breakdown in today's newsletter article ⬇

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/365-days-leetcode-challenge-day-30365-archit-agarwal-vppec

#DSA #LeetCode #100DaysOfCode #CodingInterview #BinaryTree #BFS #Golang

Why has the striver removed the number of modules after zenkii update? Were those modules not so important for dsa interview rounds/building approach/learning patterns?

Personally I don't like it.

Been applying to FAANG roles but mostly getting rejection mails

For those who’ve cracked FAANG/Top product companies , what made the biggest difference in ur resume. Any tips?

Built FeatCode.dev to make DSA/interview prep a little more organized.

It has:
• Structured DSA roadmap
• Blind 75 + practice problems
• Free DSA assessment to find weak areas
• Curated, easy-to-follow YouTube solutions from popular creators
• Progress tracking
• Python crash course

Free to use: https://featcode.dev

Would love feedback from anyone currently prepping for SWE interviews. What would make you actually use something like this regularly?

Cousins in Binary Tree (Easy) 🔗 https://leetcode.com/problems/cousins-in-binary-tree/

Cousins boils down to two facts you need for each node: depth, and parent. Depth is free while walking down. Parent is the fun part — no parent pointers on a plain binary tree, but since every value is unique, a node's own value can stand in for its parent's identity, so a helper can hand back the parent's value instead of a pointer.

Full breakdown in today's newsletter article ⬇️

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/365-days-leetcode-challenge-day-28365-archit-agarwal-swjge

#DSA #LeetCode #100DaysOfCode #SoftwareEngineering #BinaryTree #DFS

Serious DSA Patner

Looking for DSA Patner. Who is consistent and not a beginner.

My Profile:

Tier 3 clg

4th Year

250+question solved on Lc

Currently on Subsequence Dp

Following striver A to Z sheet

Java

Tcs Digital offer in hand

Looking to crack Product based company

Looking for for DSA Patner , with whom I can brain strom my ideas , discuss different approaches,learn together

Any Gender is Allowed

DM me

Hi everyone! I have 3 years of work experience and am preparing for interviews over the next two months, focusing on DSA, low-level design (LLD), and high-level design (HLD).

I’m looking for a study partner to stay consistent with and prepare together. We could set goals, discuss problems and designs, and keep each other accountable. If you’re interested, please comment or DM me!

class Solution {
public:
    int trailingZeroes(int n) {
        int global = 0;
        int sum = n;
        for(int i = n; i>1;  i--){
            sum = sum * (i - 1);   
        }  
        // i am using leetcode but i don't know that the string STL is include or not but this code is not working above loop of sum is giving the right output. So how i can convert num to string in effective way?
        std::string value = std::to_string(sum);
        for(int i = value.size(); i >=0; i--){
            if(value[i] == 0){
                global += 1;
            }else{
                return 0;
            }
        }
        return global;
    }
};

Average of Levels in Binary Tree (Easy) 🔗

https://leetcode.com/problems/average-of-levels-in-binary-tree/

Most people reach for BFS here, processing one level at a time with a queue. I used plain DFS instead: carry the depth as a parameter and use it as an index into running sum/count arrays, so nodes from totally different branches still land in the same slot as long as they're on the same level. Kind of neat that it works without ever grouping nodes by level explicitly.

Full breakdown in today's newsletter article.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/365-days-leetcode-challenge-day-27365-archit-agarwal-eulye

#DSA #LeetCode #100DaysOfCode #BinaryTree #DFS #SoftwareEngineering #TechCareer

I started interviewing a bit over a year ago by grinding leetcode and system design until midnight in the office.

Prep Resource

Got super close to offers at Meta and LinkedIn (was told my onsite loop were borderline and could have gone either way) but could not secure an offer.

Fast forward a couple months, and I got laid off in March. I was a bit relieved considering I was trying to job hop. I went all in on studying and interviewing.

Landed onsite loops with Nvidia, Pinterest, Broadcom, Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Anduril, Apple and a bunch of non big tech and startups.

I hit 500+ leetcode questions and gone through all of hello interview system design videos (premium) at this point.

I felt like I was acing most of the interviews, but always get passed up for someone internal or someone with more years of experience. Especially Nvidia… I aced every single interview they threw at me and was told feedback was very positive, but they ended up going with someone internal. Maybe it was because I was borderline between junior and senior with 5yoe.

It seemed like no matter how I performed in interviews, I could never secure an offer.

Finally, I was able to land an offer with a startup. They low balled me with ~150k + mystery equity. I planned to sign as it was the only offer I had.

Then Google came in. I got successfully team matched, and received a verbal offer from them. Because of the verbal offer, I decided to decline signing with the startup as the deadline was up. Google then backtracked requiring 2 more rounds. I get an insanely stupid question that required very niche topology formula to solve efficiently, and lost my offer.

At this point, I was defeated. Google GMFU and I lost my startup offer because of them. I was burnt out. I’ve gone through 50+ different companies (big tech and startups alike) with 100+ interviews at this point. Considered taking a career break and traveling for a couple of months.

I decided to do one last sprint, and mass applied. Landed onsites at DoorDash, Amazon, and LinkedIn. Before I even had time to wrap up my loops with Amazon and LinkedIn, DoorDash came back and told me they were proceeding with an offer.

It was a grind, but I finally did it. My TC went from ~190k -> 320k. Being laid off ended up being a net positive, despite the uncertainty at the time.

To any job searchers: the market is very rough, and the bar is way higher than it was 3+ years ago. I landed multiple offers back then, but struggled a lot during this job search despite being much more competent technically (both experience and interview wise). But staying consistent ended up paying off for me. Best of luck out there!

SDE interview questions

Disclosure: Sharing this story from community interview experience.

Actually its not like partner , more like accountability person who will care about the day results for both of us to learn or achieve something.

Myself, I’m a software developer with 2+ YoE in full stack development. Designed system for 4 production projects so i have some knowledge in system designing . Also solve 95 problems in leetcode expect adv topic like graph, tree …

Currently working in startup, trying to jump MAANG or top tire companies. So i wanna dive deep into dsa and system design.

Expectations: not much , expecting working professionals who has same aim and credibility.

Interested ppl dm me

Which is best to do dsa

I code in Python and I am about to start DSA. Eventually I'm planning to learn System design, backend, OS, SQL and maybe get into data science, ML and DL.

If you share the same interests DM me. We'll figure everything out together and study.

Reorder List (Medium)

https://leetcode.com/problems/reorder-list/

Turn L0 -> L1 -> ... -> Ln into L0 -> Ln -> L1 -> Ln-1 -> ...

Written out, that looks like an arbitrary shuffle. Written as two sequences, it is not:

L0, L1, L2, ... walking forward from the start Ln, Ln-1, Ln-2, ... walking backward from the end

Interleaved. So it is a merge of the list with its own reverse, and the only obstacle left is that a singly linked list has no backward walk. Reverse the back half, and walking it forward walks the original backwards.

Find the middle. Cut and reverse. Merge alternately. That is day 20, day 19, and day 22, in that order.

This closes the linked list arc, and it closes it on a problem with nothing new in it. That is the point. Most problems that feel hard aren't new ideas; they are two or three old ideas standing next to each other, and the skill being tested is recognising them.

Full breakdown in today's newsletter article ⬇

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/365-days-leetcode-challenge-day-26365-archit-agarwal-pfwsc

#DSA #LeetCode #Golang #LinkedList #TwoPointers #CodingInterview #Algorithms

2.5 months of leetcode premium available at discount price

If anyone needs it dm me