Is studying algoirthms and data structures that helpful in the workplace?

I’ve done countless leetcode questions as I prepare to find a new job this year. But I must ask, how often do you actually use these algorithm/data structure questions in the workplace?

In my 10 years working professionally as a SWE, it helps a little, but grinding leetcode doesn’t make you a better professional engineer in the workplace.

It might help you increase your TC though.

like never lol. You can watch the interview with Dan Abramov on youtube where you can see he clearly struggles with basic interview questions and doesn’t know graph traversal algos. Even a great engineer will pretty much never use lc style knowledge. But of course that doesn’t matter much for most engineers, most engineers are not changing jobs that often and care more about their performance ratings than jumping or boomeranging. Sad but that’s reality.

Never but knowing it through the interviews will take you further to generating an opportunity.