How did you actually practice for the real thing?

Hey, I'm very familiar with this area, the transition (note, my company started because we saw gaps in people with non traditional backgrounds so that's how I know a lot about this, but we **do NOT accept bootcamp grads with no experience and I am not recommending at all to you).** I have a FAANG lens and that's my bias, 400+ interviews conducted at Meta, trained interviewers, helped create interviews, candidate review, recruiting trips, juniors, interns, seniors, directors, etc..... So first off, almost all bootcamps promise 'career support' and all these words on their websites, that basically we're not accurate. I got into many Reddit arguments 3 years ago with staff from a particular bootcamp that insisted it provided all the support you need for your lifetime (where the people conducting the mock interviews were mostly recent grads with minimal or no work experience). The fact is, the bootcamp gets paid when you sign up and maintaining outcomes are necessary to convince people to sign up and its why bootcamps for on the **marketing and perception of outcomes** more than the ACTUAL outcomes. This is a cynical view but its the business model of bootcamps. So anyways, that's my rand **HERE IS THE USEFUL ADVICE LOL:** \- Don't grind leetcode, focus on following NeetCode's free roadmap from the easy problems onwards and REALLY focus on EASY problems until they are second nature. \- When you get to medium and harder problems make sure to follow a clear process like ours that we came up with (also free): [https://formation.dev/blog/the-engineering-method/](https://formation.dev/blog/the-engineering-method/) Reddit and Blind over focus on cynical memorization and the communication of a clear process is way more important. Speak out loud while you practice! \- **THE REASON YOU CAN'T DO IT WHEN IT COUNTS** is very likely because you are subconciously memorizing, silently doing problems and you are probably getting green checkmarks in Leetcode and moving on before deeply understanding. \- Do mock interviews. Try to do free ones, peer to peer ones, but it's also worth considering paying for them with my company's competitors like Hello Interview and Interviewingio and others. There was a coding bootcamp that said your first 6 interviews are your warmup or something and that's such bull shit... in this market you're lucky to get a couple interviews and you have to be ready. This got to long but happy to follow up in comments.