Why go through all this instead of just finding a more laid back place to work? Are the leetcode-gated jobs that much better? I'm at a very good place for my YOE and my interview consisted of one low-stress zoom call.
Many people would kill to have the opportunity to study for 100 hours in order to secure a 2-3x increase in pay. That is only 2 hours a week for a year. If a SWE is making $150k and they can spend 100 hours grinding LC to get a job which pays $400k they are going to make $250k extra in their first year of the new job or $2500/hour spent grinding LC. The present value of an extra $250k/year for the next 20 years of your career at 3% interest is roughly 3.7 million dollars. So over the period of a 20 year career you will net $37k/hour spent grinding LC.
The fact is that so many SWEs — as seen in this thread — outright refuse to grind LC to get into a FAANG which is why not everyone is making boat loads of money at a FAANG. The process to get there is well known but many are not willing to put in the work to get through the process.
I do believe that LC filters don’t reflect a SWEs ability to develop software, but it is a reflection of their commitment to do what it takes over long periods of time to complete an objective, regardless of whether or not that objective has merit.