It's quite true that companies that don't do Leetcode may not necessarily be more challenging to get into, but it is more random whether you will. And you often

It's quite true that companies that don't do Leetcode may not necessarily be more challenging to get into, but it is more random whether you will. And you often need to study especially for that one company, who may ask you, a backend developer, to do a pair coding exercise to implement a RESTful web API, even hiring for a backend position. I try not to be a part of the problem when I'm the interviewer, giving a problem that would be described as a Leetcode easy, with an optimal implementation that is below easy. But I want to see if the candidate can understand the problem, the big picture, talk about tradeoffs in the problem, properly analyze performance, properly test their code, etc. Most candidates struggle with this, many can't even code a working solution, and this is the talent pool for a "top-tier" software company.