Grokking the coding interview pdf
If it was a new problem, then I’d try to solve it and also read around to find smart ways other people used to devise its algorithm. If I could map it, I’d focus only on the different constraints this problem had compared to the parent problem. I used to read a problem and spend a few minutes to map it to a similar problem I’d seen before.
How was I able to practice 12+ coding questions every day with a fulltime job? Well, I wasn’t solving coding problems but practicing to map problems onto problems that I’d already solved. Using this routine, I was able to crack my interviews for FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google). This meant that I could solve 350+ questions within one month. I would go through 12–15 questions, practicing two hours every day. One thing I didn’t realize was that while doing my preparation, I was following a systematic approach. To tackle this, I’d spend a reasonable time for preparation and practice. I consider myself a reasonably smart engineer, but I had my challenges solving coding problems on a whiteboard, especially in an interview setting with someone evaluating me. I’ve taken 200+ coding interviews and 100+ system design interviews. I have some experience sitting on the other side of the table too. I’ve given around 30 interview loops containing 120+ interviews. My software engineering career spans around 15 years, in which I’ve switched jobs five times. In this post, I’d like to share a strategy I follow to prepare for coding interviews. The overall interview process has gotten more competitive. Today, everyone has access to massive sets of coding problems, and they’ve gotten more difficult as well.
A few years back, brushing up on key data structures and going through 50–75 practice coding interview questions was more than enough prep for an interview.
Grokking the coding interview pdf how to#
How to prepare more quickly for coding interviewsĬoding interviews are getting harder every day.