I didn’t realize I was starting a 1.5-year journey when I opened my first LeetCode problem.
It didn’t start with motivation.
It started with… cur...
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This matters to me:
It goes with anything you do as a developer and a good mindset to have. If you succeed, did you learn something. If you fail, did you learn something? Learning gives you growth and that what matters and what makes you stand out. If you didn't learn anything whether you won or lost, then you are not making progress. You are measuring your ego than what matters in life, which is constant improvements to yourself and the things you want to learn.
I hate when someone try to prove they are right and being egotistic (even I fell victim to this). Trying to get good scores or showing off while ignoring on what really matters. I am glad you made progress on LeetCode and transparent on what you are feeling. Makes a lot of people understand you more clearly and knowing that as long as you learn something, than it weights more than how many completion problems you have. Quality over quantity!
Great work :D
Thank you so much 🙌🏻
I honestly agree with you. At some point, learning becomes a much healthier metric than “winning” or being right all the time.
And yeah… ego sneaks into learning way more easily than we like to admit 😄 I’ve definitely fallen into that trap too.
Really appreciate you taking the time to write this. The “quality over quantity” part resonated with me a lot.
The 'quiet progress' is such a real concept. Going from 6 million to 26k isn't a fluke.
Thank you so much Syed 😍
That’s honestly why I called it “quiet progress”, because while it’s happening, it rarely feels dramatic at all 😄
Most days just felt like “solve a problem and move on,” but over enough time, those small days really do stack up.
Consistency is key. Your post is proof of that.
Great work! You can be proud of these accomplishments.
Thank you so much, Julien 😍
Honestly, consistency ended up mattering way more than motivation for me. A lot of the progress happened so slowly that I barely noticed it day to day 😄
This article felt very real and relatable.
More than solving 1040 problems or the huge rank jump, what stood out most was the mindset shift you described: problems no longer feel like threats, but something you can patiently work through and learn from.
The part about badges was also refreshingly honest 😄
Sometimes those small rewards are exactly what keeps us going.
I think this piece captures an important truth about programming growth: real progress is usually quiet and built through small daily repetitions, not sudden dramatic breakthroughs.
Thank you so much 😍
That “quiet progress” part is exactly what I didn’t notice while I was in it; only looking back does it become obvious.
And yeah, the badges thing is probably more emotional than I’d like to admit 😄 They somehow turn abstract progress into something you can actually see.
Glad it resonated with you!
This article is really great!
And thanks for mentioning needcode.in
I hope students and professionals prepping for interviews will get advantage in their interviews.
Thank you so much, Aditya 😍
NeedCode is really amazing, and I'm sure it will be helpful for too many developers.
Congrats on the amazing journey, digital badges and the packages. Loved your hardwork and dedications.
Keep growing and shining. I need to see you at rank 1000 haha. You should start tutoring DSA now and make everyone DSA experts.
Haha I appreciate this a lot 😄
Rank 1000 sounds wild right now, but I’m just taking it one problem at a time like always.
And about tutoring DSA… I’m still very much in “learning mode” myself 😅, but I’d love to share what I learn along the way in a simple way that actually helps people.
Thanks for sharing this approach! The diagrams really help visualize the concept. One thing I'd add: measure everything in the early days, even if it feels overkill. For indie hackers focused on user acquisition, finding the right audience is crucial - Rixly automates prospect discovery so you can focus on building.
That’s actually a really good point 🙌🏻
A lot of people skip measurement early on because it feels unnecessary, but patterns become much clearer when you have real data instead of just intuition.
And yeah, audience discovery is honestly one of the hardest parts for indie hackers. Building is usually the fun part 😄
It is definitely inspiring ,I am coding mostly frontend and afraid of losing my capacity of coding backend and algorithm skills. Also I believe the more agents we use the rustier we get. This feels like a good peptalk to me, great article 🤩
Honestly, I relate to this a lot 😄
It’s so easy to stay inside one area for too long and slowly feel rusty in others, especially now with AI agents handling more and more for us.
That’s actually one reason I kept doing LeetCode consistently, not just for interviews, but to keep my problem-solving muscles active.
Really happy the article felt motivating to you 😍
I do find this very interesting. You're clearly a talented problem solver to complete some of those puzzles, but I wonder if you could have learned as much, just by finding a project on GitHub to get involved with, while at the same contributing to something real. There are some great projects out there that truly could use the help.
I agree that contributing to real-world projects teaches a very different set of skills, especially around collaboration, code quality, and dealing with real constraints.
For me, LeetCode was more about building consistency and strengthening pure problem-solving, but I don’t see it as “better” than project work at all, just a different kind of practice 😄
In reality, both together would probably give the most balanced growth.
1040 problems is impressive, but I keep thinking about the time cost of finding what actually works. In my experience, the biggest unlock wasn’t the practice itself — it was the people who pointed me in the right direction early. One good conversation with someone who’s already made the mistakes saves months of wrong turns. The rank improvement probably happened faster once you found the right communities, not just the right problems.
That’s a really fair point.
I agree, the “right direction” early on can save a lot of unnecessary wandering. I definitely had moments where I was just grinding without much structure at the beginning.
And yeah, being part of communities where you see how others think probably helped more than I realized at the time 😄
In the end, it’s rarely just repetition; it’s repetition + better feedback loops.
Are you targeting a company? Keep us updated if you succeed.
Right now I’m freelancing in technical writing and web development, and alongside that I’m just focused on improving consistently rather than targeting any specific companies.
But I’ll definitely keep sharing updates along the way 🙌🏻
Congratulations, Hadil 🥳
Thank you so much 😍
This is a huge achievement 🤩
Great job 👏
Thank you so much 😍
What I enjoyed most is how honest this felt. No fake “overnight success,” just small efforts repeated over time. Thanks for sharing this perspective.🙂
Thank you so much 😍
Honestly, that was exactly the feeling I wanted to capture. Most growth in programming doesn’t look dramatic while it’s happening; it’s usually just a lot of ordinary days repeated over and over 😄
Glad the honesty resonated with you.
Many many congratulations Hadil. Stay consistent❤️
Thank you so much, Michael 😍
Congratulations, Hadil 🎉
Thank you so much 😍