Companies Hiring without Leetcode and career options
This is a post where I have tried to find all the resources that hire without requiring Leetcode style coding and also career options apart from SDE
Imagine this. Millions of folks spend hours working on LeetCode to get that dream job at the FAANG companies. And the best way I can compare this is like spending 2 years in IIT or folks that spend years preparing for UPSC. Literally gambling away years of your life while trying to achieve that dream. I have been one of them. Wasted 1.5 years preparing for IIT before quitting which left a mental trauma for years to come. And the next closest thing that comes to it is preparing Leetcode. Every time, I wouldn’t know how to solve a problem, those same thoughts would come back. “You can’t even solve this! How are you going to crack XYZ company” . And each time that thought comes, it erases your self confidence that much. But you don’t necessarily have to go through this. Here’s the thing. Leetcode will stay on unfortunately. I am not denying it. However, think of it like something you need to do. But where do you stop ?
In my opinion, let’s say you are having to pursue Leetcode. Set a limit to number of questions you want to do. Like Blind 75. Neetcode 150. That’s it. And as long as you put in the time to understand these questions, you should be able to crack majority of the interviews. Spend more time learning about system design. About building applications. About learning AI. Not Leetcode. And if you are looking for resources for companies that hire without Leetcode, sharing them below :
https://www.nowhiteboard.org/
List of companies not doing LeetCode
10 more companies not doing Leetcode style interviews
Alternatively, there are many career options that do not require Leetcode and are yet technical! For example : Consulting, Solutions Engineering, Integrations Engineering, Solutions Architect, Sales Engineering. And so, I created a roadmap for these fields.
The roadmap consists of 2 key topics. How to get experience, Interview Prep needed for it
Consulting
How to get experience :
Top 3 ways :
Join a college consulting business group. If you don’t have one, create one! At UIUC, I had Illinois Business Consulting, Enactus , just to name a few. Business schools typically have consulting opportunities
Pro bono consulting opportunities. There are so many pro bono consulting opportunities which can provide valuable projects to demonstrate experience. Sharing a few below
Learn a skill and take up ad hoc consulting projects via upwork. For example : say you have experience in Salesforce , or AWS certifications, find work via Upwork where you can find valuable opportunities again to show your experience. And you can be counted on as an external consultant.
Interview Prep Needed:
Market Sizing Questions : Example : How many tennis balls can fit in a plane.
Case Questions : A company has slowing profits. How can they increase it ?
Behavioral Questions
Technical Behavioral Interview
How to Prepare for them :
Entire detail covered in this earlier post : Link
Solutions
Solutions Engineering is a role with different flavors with varying levels of technical or soft skills required. I have given the role a rating from 1 to 10 with 1 being least technical and 10 being highly technical. Note this does vary from company to company. So, please do read the job description carefully!
Sales Engineer : Technical - 5, Soft Skills - 8
Solutions Engineer : Technical - 6 to 7 , Soft Skills - 9
Integrations Engineer : Technical - 8 to 9 , Soft Skills - 4
Solutions Architect - Technical - 7 , Soft Skills - 8
Companies that offer Solutions Engineering Roles
The best way to think about which company offers Solutions Engineering roles is to think about any company that offers complex technical products. These are majorly in domain of ERP, Cloud, Data, Payments to name a few. Any enterprise company that requires to have skilled technical people to helps its merchants integrate these products requires Solutions Engineers.
Sharing a few companies that offer such roles.
Payments :
PayPal - offers solutions engineering, integrations engineering for payments. And so do its competitors, Stripe, Square, World Pay, Fiserv , Visa , Mastercard. They all offer same role with different names like Solutions Architect
Data :
Amazon - solution architect at AWS. Same role is available across cloud companies. Think Google, Microsoft , Oracle , Databricks to name a few. The name is primarily Solutions Architect
But can also be Cloud Architect.
ERP and SaaS
Salesforce is a prime example. It offers Solutions Engineering and pre-sales. Other companies within the same space are SAP , Workday , Adobe, Hubspot, Zendesk
How to prepare for them ?
To prepare for such roles, the best way is to integrate the products or get certifications. A few ideas below :
Paypal : Integrate PayPal products in a sandbox environment. PayPal itself provides sandbox environment to use.
Stripe : Implement and Integrate Stripe APIs
Google : Get Google Certifications for Data Engineer or Cloud Professionals
AWS : Clear AWS Solutions Architect Certifications. AWS itself offers more than 100 certifications for you to learn different products.
Microsoft : Similar to AWS, get Azure certifications.
Salesforce : Again, Salesforce certifications for the win