Back in my uni times I remember helping out a few of my friends from CS course by doing pair programming with them (I myself was taking mechanical course, I was

Back in my uni times I remember helping out a few of my friends from CS course by doing pair programming with them (I myself was taking mechanical course, I was not good enough with math and physics to get a place in CS course). They was asking me how do I do this, that I sit down and start solving their problem like I knew the solution despite the fact I have seen each problem for the first time. I used to tell them, that if they cut through enough of problems they will be the same. From the perspective of time I think there was one thing that I had and most of my CS friends did not - programming was my hobby and I loved everything related with computers, they only wanted the end result which was good money and stable job. Would I do 1500 leetcode problems? Maybe when I was younger and had no commitments, but certainly not now. From perspective of years I see that leetcode is quite far from what I do on daily basis, and I do write quite a lot of code. If I went to the job interview and was given a problem I have never faced before I would want the interviewer to see me finding the solution and not giving memorized (or practiced) answer. If result was not great and interviewer decided I'm not fit for the role that's better outcome than to give false impression and then struggle (even if interview problem is nowhere close to what they do in daily basis).