In my short career I’ve noticed that employers are notorious for underpaying you to the point that people with 3-4 years of experience are getting paid the same as freshers. The management always has an excuse to not increase pay or increase it very minimally. The best way to increase pay has been to keep moving every 2-3 years from one company to the next if switching means at least 1.5x or 2x the current salary.
This means major interview prep requiring solving leetcode style questions, solving system design questions, then some more. I just wanted to how often do you prepare? Are you always interview ready or start prepping a few months before switching jobs?
Oh and for interview prep. I don’t really do much training. I either pass their genitalia measuring contest, or I don’t and I move on. If I’m qualified for the gig, then I should be able to roll with whatever they give me. Luckily the better jobs I’ve had didn’t even really do much whiteboarding and brain teasers though. Research has shown it really doesn’t do anything for your quality of hires. It’s better to get a feeling for how someone thinks and if they will be a good culture fit than if they can memorize the latest hot code kata.