I haven't actually seen that cycle in practice when I've been hiring. Maybe a small number of people practice a lot on leetcode, but it seems most don't. And I

I haven't actually seen that cycle in practice when I've been hiring. Maybe a small number of people practice a lot on leetcode, but it seems most don't. And I think it's hard to get better at those sorts of problems and not get even a bit better at programming in general. Remember the problem here is people who can't code their way out of a paper bag, not people who just struggle with exotic algorithms questions.