I graduated University with a Bachelor's degree in Maths and Physics. I 'accidently' landed a job as a Software Dev with a small amateurish company near my pare

I graduated University with a Bachelor's degree in Maths and Physics. I 'accidently' landed a job as a Software Dev with a small amateurish company near my parents home. Passing their job interview basically required that I could write coherently and pass an ancient IBM 'logical thinking' test. I was there for 18 months. Prior to this, my programming experience consisted of two terms of Pascal programming pre-University. After this job, I joined a research company that actually knew something about software, if not money. Here I got most of my relevant experience, and after 5 years decided I should get a new job. I wasn't targeting FAANG, but I did interview at Amazon and Google. My prep was largely some time on HackerRank and similar sites, probably totaling less than 20 hours. I likely spent more time preparing for Amazon's leadership questions. I did no practice interviews, but did fail Amazon's on-site (and a few others). I do, however, do Advent of Code every year. This was probably the single largest aid in getting me past Google interview. I felt like I was a bit lucky with respect to the interview questions I got, but I think most people who pass feel that way. And anyway, the more you do prepare, the more likely you are to be lucky. ;)