Having done many interviews, I can say that studying that much often doesn't help as much as one might think. Yes, I think someone in industry for 10 years will

Having done many interviews, I can say that studying that much often doesn't help as much as one might think. Yes, I think someone in industry for 10 years will need to brush up with a few days of revision, and I think that's a bit of a pain, but I've had many candidates who have spent months of free time doing leetcode who can't actually think about an abstract problem, or who can't code their way out of a paper bag when it gets to a more real world example. My previous place used to have a 3 hour (capped) take home assignment. Most candidates who progressed claimed to have taken ~90-120 mins and finished comfortably (although they were not judged based on this). Over the years a number of candidates went "above and beyond", without asking, and submitted an "even better" solution after 8+ hours. None of them passed, even based on their final submission. More does not equal better. I think at most FAANG places you need a baseline knowledge, but many people go overboard, and over-fit, possibly because they don't have the baseline ability and are trying to make up for it. There are a bunch of issues with FAANG style hiring, I'm not a huge fan, but I don't think what you've described is the problem.