Can I be hired at a good company by just grinding DSA?

I partially agree with another commenter on here that referrals at FAANG mean you are putting your own reputation on the line.If you consistently refer good people, your referrals are trusted more and if you don't they are not trusted. That said, here are three counter points. 1. Some FAANG companies have different pathways for people without experience, like apprenticeship or internships. Having inside connections can help refer you to the right program and maybe get you noticed, as these pathways are every competitive. 2. There are smaller companies run by ex-FAANG engineers that are super strong and have similar interview processes. These might be more approachable for someone with less experience if they have the resources to ramp you up. It can be hard to hire great people at the less known awesome companies and they are sometimes willing to invest a bit in ramping up someone with high potential. 3. More broadly, you absolutely can get an entry level FAANG job with no experience. At Formation.dev, we typically work with people with 1+ years experience, but we've worked with low double digit people with zero work experience and around 75% have landed at top tier companies! You can look into us independently because I don't want this to be an ad, but it is very much possible to get into FAANG with zero experience if you are the right person. When you have engineers with very deep many-year-long connections to high ranking people at all the FAANG companies you can put your neck out for potential superstars with zero experience and it can work.

I just commented a partial agreement and partially counter above.

There are many. Statsig is a hot company right now. Rockset is another one. Vanta. You want to look for funding series B, C and 5+ year ex-FAANG engineerings amongst the founders and have top tier investors Trusted connections and referrals help for companies like this.

Take a look at Formation.dev, I dont want to market it so look on your own. We work with a very small number of people with no bootcamp or prior experience but they fall into the bucket you describe. We are also backlogged right now so you might not even be able to get in... but it's worth taking a look and considering the full spectrum of your options. Another thing you can try is applying to top tier apprenticeships, like Dropbox Ignite and Asana Up and LinkedIn Reach. They have high DSA bars and might be a path to accelerate.

Keep a close eye on the deadlines for apprenticeship because they are normally once or twice a year and short time windows. Dropbox Ignite just closed. LinkedIn Reach is expecting the fall: https://careers.linkedin.com/reach