Friends,

I have have been leeting from jan 2020 or so, regularly. In between I have been solving EPI too.
In the mean time, I have failed facebook phone, google phone, dropbox onsite , uber onsite last year and now this year, amazon onsite.

I complete way ahead of time when I see a known pattern, and I am completely stumped when the question is new. It makes me feel like I have no brain - can only solve similar things and I have no problem solving ability of my own.

Also, I panic and fumble and try to see teh solution right away in the interview setting, and it has happened all the time, expect with dropbox interviews.

How can I develop some methoidical approach? When I try to solve at home, its slightly better - with unknown patterns, I am atleast calm, try a few examples, and if I cant see patterns I give up.

I use c++. not sure if a better language helps develop more perspectives.

At this point, Perhaps it looks like I have barely strugggled given the number of interviews I took so far while the truth is I am close to a break down since I do this thing late nights, almost every night, streactching thin between full time work, family and childrem commitments. At times I have wondered if I am so dull because I am over worked. i need a job soon since my current job can go away anytime. the current job has no skills that is cloud or other modern tech. So i cant try a skill based switch easily too.

Also - may be I am naive , but I thought I will eventually get this stuff soomer or later since academically I was the best in class with algos, and best in math through school and even masters/ undergrad engineering. But may be I am just useless. faang interviews have left me wondering may be the one strength I beleived in with myself is also non existant.

Just could use some empathy / advice and felt like sharing somewhere.

thanks so much for reading my rant.