Tarmac vs LeetCode
Mark Dickie · October 2026 · 3 min read
Which one to practise each interview round on, and what each costs
On this page · 7 sections
The short version
Use LeetCode for the timed algorithm round, and use Tarmac for the questions on the job's own stack. Large companies still set algorithm problems, and LeetCode has more of them than anyone. Plenty of rounds ask something else: how React decides to re-render, what a Postgres query plan tells you, how you'd cache a slow endpoint. Tarmac is built for those.
I run Tarmac, so weigh what follows with that in mind. Every LeetCode price below was read on its subscribe page on 30 October 2026.
Do companies still ask LeetCode questions in 2026?
The big ones do. Interviewing.io, which sells mock interviews, surveyed interviewers in 2025 and reported that "of the 52 respondents from FAANG, ZERO said that their company has moved away from algorithmic questions". The founders of Hello Interview wrote in The Pragmatic Engineer that "LeetCode 'hard' problems" at Google had gone from rare to normal.
Across all employers it's more mixed. CoderPad surveyed more than 650 hiring teams for its State of Tech Hiring 2026: 43% still rely on algorithm results, 38% use system design and 30% use pair programming. All three publishers sell to engineers or to the people hiring them, so none of them is neutral.
So if the company is large and well known, expect an algorithm round and practise it on LeetCode. If it's smaller, ask the recruiter what the technical rounds are. The answer is often a conversation about the stack in the ad.
Tarmac and LeetCode side by side
| LeetCode | Tarmac | |
|---|---|---|
| Algorithm problems | The largest set anywhere, judged against tests, with timed simulations on Premium | Some coding questions, run against tests. Far fewer than LeetCode |
| Questions on a stack | SQL and JavaScript problems, judged the same way as the rest | 12,695 questions across 76 areas, from React and Kubernetes to system design and behavioural rounds, each fact-checked and reviewed by a person |
| Starting from a company | Problems tagged by the companies that asked them (Premium) | Paste the job ad and get a quiz on the skills it asks for, plus a list of the ones you're short on |
| Spoken phone screen | None | On Pro: a practice call out loud, with every answer marked |
| Free plan | Most problems, with Premium problems and company tags locked | 2 job-ad quizzes, 10 practice sessions and 100 marked answers every 30 days |
| Paid plan | $35 a month or $159 a year, renewing until you cancel | $19 for a month, $49 for 3 months or $99 for a year. Nothing renews |
When LeetCode is the right pick
If your next round is a timed algorithm problem at a large company, practise on LeetCode. Volume matters there. You're learning to spot a dozen or so patterns under a clock, and in my experience that takes a few hundred problems. Tarmac's coding set won't get you that.
LeetCode Premium's company tags also tell you which problems a company has set before. Tarmac doesn't sort questions by company.
When Tarmac is the right pick
At smaller companies especially, the rounds are often questions on the technologies the ad lists. Someone hiring a backend engineer for a Rails and Postgres team will ask about N+1 queries and index choice. They won't set a dynamic programming puzzle. LeetCode doesn't ask you to explain things in words, and that's what these rounds are.
Paste the ad at gettarmac.com/practice and you get a quiz on what it asks for, with answers marked as you go. The guide to prep from a job ad has the method if you'd rather do it by hand.
Some areas people prepare for: React, TypeScript, databases and SQL, Kubernetes, system design and behavioural questions.
The phone screen is the other gap. Answering out loud, with someone waiting, is a different skill from typing. Tarmac Pro runs a practice phone screen by voice and marks each answer afterwards, including how long you took and how often you said "um". You can hear a sample call without an account.
What does each cost over a job search?
A job search ends, and that's where the two pricing models differ most. Three months of LeetCode Premium on the monthly plan is $105, and it keeps charging after you've signed unless you cancel. Tarmac's 3-month pass is $49 once and stops by itself.
Over a year it's $159 for LeetCode against $99 for Tarmac. If your loop has both an algorithm round and stack rounds, one month of LeetCode ($35) for the puzzles and Tarmac's pass ($49) for the rest covers both.
Sources
- Interviewing.io, How is AI changing interview processes?, 2025.
- Evan King and Stefan Mai, The reality of tech interviews, The Pragmatic Engineer, 2025.
- CoderPad, State of Tech Hiring 2026.
- LeetCode, Premium plans and features, read 30 October 2026.
Paste the ad you're applying for
You'll see the topics it asks for before the first question.
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