Everyone says the key to landing a software job is grinding LeetCode. Solve hundreds of problems, and the offers will roll in.
But here’s the harsh truth—LeetCode isn’t enough.
You can memorize algorithms, ace coding challenges, and yet struggle in real-world software development.
Because when you’re on the job, your biggest problems won’t be binary trees or dynamic programming.
They’ll be messy codebases, unpredictable users, and working with people who don’t think like you do.
Here's 7 reasons why solving Leetcode problems does not help you become a good software developer.
1. AI can solve LeetCode problems - where does that leave you?
All the LLMs can solve LeetCode problems in a matter of seconds. The accuracy will only improve as time goes on.
So what's the value that you can bring to an organization?
2. Users are unpredictable
This is an old joke.
A QA walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a string of random characters. First real user walks in and asks where the bathroom is. And the whole bar catches fire.
Real-world users don’t follow predefined rules.
They input unexpected values, break your UI, and find edge cases you never considered.
In the video below, see what users are using the new Bounce Features for Mercedes.
Writing production code means anticipating failures and designing for resilience—something LeetCode won’t teach you.
3. Your code is not an island
Most real-world applications interact with multiple external systems—APIs, databases, third-party services.
These systems change, fail, and return unexpected data.
Handling these changes with minimal disruption is a critical skill that LeetCode completely ignores.
I remember an issue where the labels on parcels got all mixed up.
How do you find what caused the issue?
You never learn to troubleshoot issues across many systems using LeetCode.
4. Your code is only the technical specification part of the software. The bigger part is people.
Software development is a team sport. You’ll collaborate with engineers, product managers, designers, and QA testers.
You’ll encounter tough personalities and conflicting priorities.
More importantly, you’ll get feedback.
QA engineers will break your code, senior engineers will challenge your designs, and business stakeholders will change requirements.
Learning to handle this with maturity and professionalism is essential—LeetCode doesn’t prepare you for that.
5. Seeing the Bigger Picture Matters More Than Fixing Bugs
Sometimes, a bug might look an easy fix. But if you do not take time to understand the consequences of the fix on the system, it might result in a host of new bugs that you never thought of.
Understanding the exact root cause of the bug and analyzing impact to the overall system is critical to doing good development work.
Key questions you can ask:
- Are you 100% sure of the root cause? The best way to determine is if you can reproduce the bug.
- When this fix gets deployed, is there any concurrent feature that this will affect?
- Is this scenario one-off, or does it have the potential to repeat often?
- Is there a requirement that will get affected in the near future?
6. There is a method to software development
Most often this method is Agile.
Understanding sprints, stand-ups, code reviews, and release cycles is crucial for working effectively in a team.
Without this, you’re just writing code in a vacuum. No company operates that way.
7. Writing Code Is Easy—Writing Simple Code Is Hard
"A code is written once but read a thousand times." - Robert C. Martin
Anyone can write code that works.
Great developers write code that is clean, understandable, and maintainable.
Future developers (including your future self) should be able to read and extend it without frustration.
Good coding practices include:
- Writing clean, readable code
- Following design patterns (be careful with this one)
- Writing meaningful tests
- Documenting edge cases and limitations
The Bottom Line
LeetCode is useful, but it’s not enough. Focusing solely on it creates massive blind spots.
The best developers go beyond algorithms. They learn:
- How to write maintainable, well-structured code
- How to debug and troubleshoot real-world systems
- How software interacts with infrastructure and external services
- How to work effectively in teams
Now you might be wondering, when you are just starting out or switching to software development, what is one practical step that you can take.
One key action is that you can build a real-world project. Now there are caveats to that.
I will add that in another post. But it helps with most of the problems discussed in the post.
Reader’s challenge:
Even if you skip LeetCode and work on a real-world project, which of these challenges do you think you’d still struggle to learn?
Hit reply to let me know. Looking forward to your reply.
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