Hey all,

I'm a career switcher looking to break into SWE, and I'd like to get started with Leetcode as it seems algorithmic interviews are an Inevitability, but I'm not entirely sure where to start the learning and practicing process.

For a little bit of background, I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering about 4 years ago and it's been a very long time since I've done anything related to Data Structures and Algorithms. The work I do now involved no programming, but I'm self studying in the evenings. For DSA, I'm proficient in Java.

I'm aware of what exists out there (algorithmic complexity, arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, hashmaps, trees, etc.), but if I'm being completely honest, I've forgotten all of it other than the names of these things and what they look like diagrammatically. Not even sure how to implement basic operations on these data structures any more (search, insertion, deletion, etc.)

I'm basically starting with a clean slate.

With that said, is there a roadmap / list of topics I should cover before jumping into Leetcode?

So far, my game plan is as follows:

1) Follow along with William Fiset's Data Structures course and his Graphs course as well.

2) Watch and take notes / learn from the Abdul Bari playlist for algorithms

3) Reviewing the 16 Leetocde patterns from Educative

4) Start with easier questions from HackerRank

5) Get started with Leetcode and work towards being able to solve 2 mediums in 45 minutes.

Does this seem like a good game plan?

Am I missing anything?

What other resources would you recommend I look into.

I'm in no particular rush (I'm planning for my career switch to take 2 more years, as I'm working full time and studying during my evenings). I'd like to have a comprehensive understanding of all underlying concepts so I won't need to dig as deep and re-learn everything from scratch when I want to change jobs from one SWE position to another SWE position in the future.

Thanks in advance all!