> Leetcode interviews do a decent job at this.
I mean it doesn't, because I'm at a FAANG, At a FAANG you are infantalised from the very start, sure you passed a very difficult interview where you have to balance a binary tree efficiently as possible. But you're going to use none of those skills here.
what you actually end up doing is copy/pasting some random code you found using internal code search, because the sensible way of doing it can't happen as that would involve porting a thirdparty library, and doing all the procedural work that follows.
so you hack some shit together, ship out out and hope that it doesn't break. You then decommission the nasty hack you shipped last year and claim credit for innovating. Is your product not hitting the right metrics? loosing users? doesn't matter, so long as the super boss is happy that you've hammered in the REST API for the stupid AI interface, you're not going to get fired.
In a startup/small company, if you fuck up, the whole place is going under. Need metrics? you'll need to find a small, cheap and effective system.
Here, we just record then entire world and then throw hundreds of thousands of machines at it to make a vaguly SQL interface. Don't worry about normalising your data, or packing it efficiently just make a 72 column table, and fill it full of random JSON shit. Need to alter a metrics? just add a new column.
In short, don't praise or assume that FAANGs are any good at anything other than making money. They are effectively a high budget marvel movie, Sure they have a big set, but most of it is held together with tape and labour. Look round the side and you'll see its all wood, glue and gaffer tape.