Small price to pay to get more and more absurdly high paying jobs every 3-5 years.
Being a productive, valuable member of a software development team is teaching you things that will set you up for success in higher level roles. You won’t be taken for those roles on Leetcode interview performance alone.
>You won’t be taken for those roles on Leetcode interview performance alone.
I think the problem is that for some teams the entire process is some combination of leetcode-style "technical" interviews and then some "culture fit" interviews, without any chance to talk about actual dev work.
Large tech companies will have system design and project oriented behavioral interview which will somewhat cover actual dev work. Other than that it pays to build up your network during your career. You can basically bypass interviews at smaller companies with the right referral.
Being a productive, valuable member of a software development team is teaching you things that will set you up for success in higher level roles. You won’t be taken for those roles on Leetcode interview performance alone.