I am a grad student right now with 2 years of industry experience. Google still prefers people who are extremely good at Data Structures and Algorithms. I like doing them, but not so much to just grind them for the sake of getting into Google. I like to learn how to design big systems and grinding Data Structures and Algorithms seems like a waste of time.
I put in "only" 40 hours of refreshing on data structures and algorithms, and doing some practice coding problems, in the weeks leading up to my interview. And I got the job.
Frankly, it's been the best hourly return on investment of anything I've done in my life up to this point, by far. Assuming I wouldn't have gotten the job otherwise (which seems reasonable), each of those hours spent studying has proven to be worth several tens of thousands of dollars. I'm not exaggerating; I just did the math.
Maybe the interviewing process is broken or sub-optimal or whatever, but it is what it is, and if you can get through it by doing some additional studying, then it's absolutely worth it. Google is a good place to work on designing big systems, so if that's your interest, consider just putting in the work.
This is a solid advice. Thanks! I will try to dedicate a portion of my day to brusing up Data Structures and Algorithms and maybe, eventually, I will get good enough to crack the interview.
