[VRay]

I think it works to some extent. There's a limit to how much you can get out of yourself, and a lot of dumb luck involved in getting interviewers who are actually reasonable.

In my case, when I grind those dumb problems I quickly go from needing 45+ minutes to implement a working sort function with file I/o to banging it out in 5-10 minutes. I dunno if I'd ever get good enough at those problems to make it into Google unless I got lucky, but I've gotten offers from the other FAANGs over the years

The whole thing is pointless, though. If a junior engineer asked me for advice, I'd tell him to get whatever job he can and work on saving money/building a startup in his spare time.

Grinding for months to get into Google is so soul crushing, and working for any big company is just awful in the long run compared to being independent