There are a few things which makes this culture worse. Depending on your luck if your manager is someone without kids, or has grown up kids, they might be tota

There are a few things which makes this culture worse. Depending on your luck if your manager is someone without kids, or has grown up kids, they might be totally OK working more hours than you, and as a result, the culture can totally become what the author is describing. Mix the whole interviewing process of Leetcoding with this, and it becomes a sad worklife, and even if you want to escape that, switching careers can only happen if you put in extra hours. Life is too short to make this sacrifice. My strategy has been to create good relationships with people in companies and then if they want to hire me, tell them clearly I don't work overtime and I don't do Leetcode. Has worked well for me so far. Relationship building and networking is still the best way even in this industry. The present company I am working at, I didn't even have to do a coding test. Just a chat.