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I'd much rather see people doing side projects than studying Cracking the Code Interview.

Agree! I bought that book (Cracking the Coding Interview) just to see what the fuss was about it. That thing is massive, dense, and has enough sample problems to keep a person busy for hundreds of hours...

Those hundreds of hours are way better spent building a side project...and will speak volumes more than trudging through a book to help you "hack" the technical interview.

This is the struggle and the reality of the competition. You have CTCI and leecode on top of that. Plus, to stand out with recruiters, you also want to contribute to open source code and/or have side projects. All of this on top of full-time school and a part-time job was extremely overwhelming. Now that I'm working full-time it's much more manageable.

Also, luck is hugely important during the interview process of your interviewer and the questions you get.

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