Background

In my previous company, prior to joining, I was promised a growth charter that was inline with my career goals. However, as time passed by I realized those plans were not going to materialize. Starting November 2021 I decided to change my job and started practicing for interviews.

Prep

Throughout my prep I was going back and forth with different topics. I had a rough idea of which topic would I need to practice. I spent a lot of time brushing up on fundamentals. I also found the coding patterns which helped a lot to have focused study path. I use to listen to DDIA while doing household chores. I saw a lot of mock interviews on YouTube as well.

Community

I worked hard on staying with my commitment to prep by building a prep habit of spending 30-60 minutes pr day solving a problem, reading, taking or watching a mock interview. However, I had a lot going on in my personal life that was making it hard to prep solo. Hence, I decided to find a community that would help me to stay motivated and stay accountable to myself. It helped to be part of the community of people who were on a similar journey. Keeping up with cohorts made the biggest difference in my prep as well as my confidence in going ahead with scheduling interviews.

Recommendation

My advice would be don't spend time on blind during your prep or interviews. It does not help at all. Blind is very helpful once you get offers and are ready to pick one. Another suggestion would be find a community sooner. Going through the journey alone can be daunting and lonely. A community with like minded people can make the who process much more tolerable