I recently started building VR apps for VR headsets with Kotlin/Android after five years as a front-end/full-stack engineer. It has been humbling and scary, but I'm learning and loving it. The switch was motivated by several reasons typical to FAANG companies.
I see this a lot, but I will go out on a limb to tell you ADHD is not the reason for your failures. You probably already know this, but it feels better to blame it on something you think is beyond your control.
No, Leetcode interviews are very much alive. I have interviewed at all three companies you mentioned for frontend roles & they all ask Leetcode questions, but to varying degrees.
FB: I currently work here.
LC style questions but with a frontend twist. Best believe if you don’t have a strong handle on algorithms, data structures and Javascript, you won’t stand a chance.
Google:
Phone screen is leetcode, during onsite they ask two leetcode questions & 1 frontend focused one.
Apple:
Phone screen is Leetcode, onsite is a combination of leetcode & frontend.
I actually find frontend interviewers to be harder because you have to have a strong handle on frontend technology + data structures and algorithms, as opposed to non-frontend roles where just doing leetcode is all you need.
Also, there is the very wrong notion among people ignorant about the frontend engineering world like yourself that assume all it entails is simply knowing how to use React & CSS. It is more complex than that, you’d have to know about the DOM tree, know how to manipulate it, think about accessibility & performance. It can become complex very fast. Most of these interviews create Leetcode style questions from DOM tree manipulation & they are harder to reason about.
I'm really sorry if you took my words the wrong way, I guess it came out wrong. I'm not downplaying your efforts, on the contrary I think they are great, most people give up after 3days of debugging. IMHO I'm just saying that sometimes companies look for experience not just from apps, but also from years of programming.
For the record, I'm not in the U.S (never been there before), but I've worked for U.S(New York) based companies as a remote developer. I currently work as a remote developer for another startup in Germany. I've never left Africa before. I taught myself to code, learnt the hard way(I mean epileptic power supply, no/poor internet service) and I don't really value my degree, I'm not sure if it has helped in any way, ironically I don't have it(have not gone back to get it) and have never applied for a job with it. I admire your efforts and wish you good luck in all your future endeavours.
Really sucks man. Most times companies are looking for people with experience, most self-taught programmers like myself built up that experience over the year(regardless of what language)s through side projects in college and stupid stuff for fun. It pays to build up your portfolio while doing your 9-5. One can't just take tutorials within a year, build a test app and get a job, am not sure if the tech industry works that way.
Really interesting responses from people on here, thanks for sharing. I've learnt a lot. I live in Africa where taking your career seriously is something one cannot afford to take for granted, we do not all have the luxury of traveling the world and a good well paying job is one of the securities one can have. Albeit that, I've read people complain about how they should have spent more time outside, thinking of it now, it hit me that I don't want to regret when am older (24 ATM) so instead of the extra work this afternoon I have decide to have lunch with my girlfriend and no am not working on the weekends, I'll take my sisters shopping. That's the good thing about remote work :)
When I first learnt to code I started out building stuff to solve problems around me, turns out it wasn't a problem to people.
while in college
- myrumate.com [2011] I built a basic web app to help students find roomates, especially students coming from long distances.
- thestudybox.com [2012] (I still keep this domain don't know why) question and answer site for students, a cheap stackoverflow clone.
- Snatchh.com [2013] A classifieds sites for students to buy and sell stuff.ly
They all failed but I learnt a lot about building stuff from scratch to completion alone. Code was most procedural PHP(spaghetti) and I experienced first hand the problem with a large smelly code base.
I still build stuff, but it's mostly small personal stuff.
1. Focusing on my hobby which was programming while in school and skipping a lot of classes.
2. Invested a lot of my time in learning more(Data structures/algorithms, advanced JavaScript) which gave me the courage to quit my soul sucking job and helped me land a much b€tt€r one.
I'm still very young so I'm actively saving up my "F-u" money.
This is so true right now especially for me. You sir, have a wealth of experience. I actually focused on teaching my self programming while in school and skipped a lot of classes and it paid off in the end $o much.
I really do know the feeling of no feedback. I agree that hiring is really broken, only 2 months back I went on various interview rounds for a Front-end position and couldn't quite understand how an Algorithm would help one with CSS floats. I think I was lucky to interview with a Startup that really knew what they wanted and all I had to build was an app. I got the job and I love the job, I don't think I've ever been more in love with my job like this.
PS: The startup's not American, American startups have an inflated ego.