u/NachosPalatino wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Could you go into a little more detail about what you mean by "fundamentals"? I imagine it involves something a little deeper than just practicing one specific framework, or just memorizing leetcode solutions
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited
So in reality, the problems you solve are not as hard as Leetcode problems, but they aren't as easy as just practicing every day React use effect hooks over and over.
You need to be good at both to apply both sides of thinking to real work situations.
Real world example: we had some performance issues on the backend. It took a deep understanding of hash tables, sorting, references vs values, and more classic concepts APPLIED TO THE REAL WORLD to solve.
Someone who memorized Leetcode will struggle with applying those things to a very practical problem. Part of the practical is looking through thousands of lines of code and figuring out where to deep dive into the DSA. On the other hand if all you do is write "easy" code that keeps the ship running, you don't have the fundamentals to understand how to improve the performance of code.
As many will tell you in this subreddit, you can get a good job with a lot of hustle and practical skills, but you should be thinking about a 20+ year career and not just the job you'll have tomorrow.