Hello fellow LC\'rs\n\nOk, I am a bit concerned.\n\nBackground: I finished CS from Univ fo MD, college park.  Learned algorithms, data structures, etc.  Though that was about 20 years ago (finished 1999).  Since then i\'ve worked on varous projects, though to be honest, I didn\'t really use any hard core algorithms and stuff like big O, wasn\'t really thought about more you\'d just have a hunch and use what made sense.\n\nOk, so just over a month ago I got a call from a recruiter and they sent the interview packet which mentioned LC.  As a developer, at first it was quite fun doing the problems.  I started on the default problem order, and I\'d take down 3-5 problems those first few days.  Very rarely would I get a stumper, and to be honest, I didn\'t use any formal algorithms, often brute force and sometimes optimized when I\'d exceed time.  \n\nNow, today, i\'m hitting many questions that are stumpers, even on the leetcode daily challenges, like todays with the course schedule.   Then I got a message about a problem I solved and was in the discussion and I don\'t even recognize the problem.  I read the description, and it looked like a stumper, but I had done it, 23 days ago, just a week or so when I started.\n\nMy question is, when do you more senior guys actually improve?  I now at 120 solved questions, and it feels like i\'m getting stumper questions (where I have to look at the solution because I can\'t figure it out myself) far more often.  To be honest I don\'t know if it\'s because i\'m giving up earlier rather then just writing whatever code and optimizing, or if it\'s that i\'m on a stretch of bad problems.  I\'m bringing this up now after todays stumper, then reading the previous problem I did 3_+ weeks ago and after rereading the description, thinking oh man, I have no idea about how to do it (but i had, when I was even more green, just a week in, rather then 4-5 weeks seasoned as i am now.)\n\nAre the #1-50 questions easier on leetcode?  Do you guys get better at some point?  When is that point?  what is the thing that actually brings improvements?  Just doing problems does not seem to be helping for me...  Maybe I\'m jumping to the solution discussion to earlier now (I didn\'t do that before, I\'d just start writing crap code and refactoring till I got a solution).\n\nI\'d love to hear your thought, thanks!

Hello fellow LC\'rs\n\nOk, I am a bit concerned.\n\nBackground: I finished CS from Univ fo MD, college park.  Learned algorithms, data structures, etc.  Though 