[42_]

Sure. I agree with your broader point. But a lot of companies don't have the time or inclination to conduct useful interviews (take home assignments, project deep dives etc). So they simply ask a bunch of leetcode questions and 1-2 system design, "behavioral" questions, and expect you to give perfect answers. Conversely, if you are in a situation where you want a job at these companies, then you do leetcode. As an anecdote, I like solving programming puzzles (advent of code, ICPC problems etc) but couldn't clear FANG without leetcode. I despised leetcode because the puzzles/problems there are uninspiring as compared to ICPC problems. Of course, software engineering has very little to do with any of it :)