I've never known people who have contacts/good experience and can deliver to "have to grind leetcode". This may be the case for new entrants or areas with huge

I've never known people who have contacts/good experience and can deliver to "have to grind leetcode". This may be the case for new entrants or areas with huge amounts of competition. I've known several people to get jobs at Microsoft and Google due to their educational background (PHD projects), industry knowledge and conference presence, and general competence. I'd be very surprised if any of these people was working through these lists of questions and I've never directly used these tests when I've been interviewing, although I have used some of the concepts of course.