>But maybe I'm doing it all wrong, and I should stop working on this to practice leetcode.
Junior here and not as experienced as you are but I resonate with a lot of what you have written so far. I'm more of let my work and projects speak for itself. I also hate leetcode or code challenge kinda interviews. So far I haven't have to take any to get a job and I plan on never taking or doing any. If I see that an interview involves such I will reject it. I can accept a decent take home assignment or technical questions in areas that I will likely encounter on the job.
Just be aware that by doing so you are ruling out a huge swathe of companies, typically the ones who pay much more than the rest [1]. It’s fine to do so, money isn’t everything, but I think it’s worth being aware of the trade off. FWIW I think any reasonably competent developer can master Leetcode to a good enough level in maybe a few months (outside of work)… The Manning Grokking Algorithms book is a nice simple intro.
Bad move imo.
You're only a junior, you have your whole career ahead of you. You're ruling out more than 50% of companies by deciding not to do live coding on an interview.
Junior here and not as experienced as you are but I resonate with a lot of what you have written so far. I'm more of let my work and projects speak for itself. I also hate leetcode or code challenge kinda interviews. So far I haven't have to take any to get a job and I plan on never taking or doing any. If I see that an interview involves such I will reject it. I can accept a decent take home assignment or technical questions in areas that I will likely encounter on the job.