This question comes up a lot: is the NeetCode 150 list enough to get you through a software development interview?

It depends a lot on the person, but my answer for the most part is “yes, if you do it right.”

The NeetCode 150 is enough if you do it right

I’m not going to hedge here: I think the NeetCode 150 list is enough leetcode prep for interviewing. The caveat here is that you have to prepare correctly. Unfortunately, a lot of people prepare these problems incorrectly and then wonder why they don’t perform well during the interview.

In the following sections, I’ll cover how to correctly prepare using the NeetCode 150.

Things to do when completing the NeetCode 150

• Give yourself 20-30 minutes to try a problem before you look at a solution. Giving up early and jumping straight to a solution doesn’t allow you to train the problem-solving parts of your mind.
• If you look up the solution for a problem, force yourself to write out the solution without looking at it. It’s very easy to look at a solution and tell yourself, “okay, I understand it.” But in reality, you probably don’t fully understand it and likely you won’t remember it. After you view a solution, make yourself write out that solution and get the problem “Accepted” on leetcode.
• If you look up the solution for a problem, you must complete it again at a later date. If you solve a problem only after looking at its solution, you have no idea if you really know how to solve it. Bookmark any problem that you had help with for another day to make sure you can solve it without help.
• Practice talking out loud as you solve. Many people find this ridiculous, but it’s a must. You don’t want the interview to be the first time you have to explain your thinking as you’re solving a problem! It’s a tough skill if you’ve never done it before, so I highly recommend incorporating it into your practice.
• Rotate problem categories. One mistake people make is to do the NeetCode 150 one category at a time. The problem with this approach is that, by the time you’re done a later category, you’ve forgotten everything about an earlier category. Instead, consider a rotating strategy. One approach I usually advocate for is to complete all the easy problems in each category, then move to mediums, then move to hards.

There’s still luck involved

A little bad news: you could prepare 5,000 problems and it’s still possible you get a problem you can’t solve, or you have a bad night of sleep, or something else just makes the interview go poorly. Practicing leetcode problems will never guarantee you will pass an interivew, it will just increase your odds of passing.

There are other types of coding challenges, especially if you’re interviewing in a niche

Be careful not to only train NeetCode 150 problems if you’re in a niche like frontend or quant. An interview for frontend jobs will likely cover html, css, javascript, and DOM manipulation, for example.

There’s more to interviewing than nailing the coding challenges

My final piece of advice is to make sure you have well-rounded preparation for your interviews. You can be the best leetcoder in the world but if you don’t prepare to talk about your work history, have bad answers to behavioral questions, or are rude, you probably won’t get the job offer.

Conclusion

The NeetCode 150 is an excellent resource and for the most part should be enough to get you part leetcode-style interviews. That being said, make sure you prepare it correctly! And, even if you crush the leetcode part of your interview, there are all kinds of other interview types you’ll want to make sure to prepare.