The Ultimate Tech Interview Problem Flowchart
For the Coding Interview Noob
For those like myself who don’t have an extended background in computer science, algorithmic and whiteboarding questions that you will surely be asked in software developer interviews often seem extremely daunting.
To be brutally honest, I really suck. I’m horrible at these algorithmic problems and have initially really struggled with implementing recursion and data structures in my solutions. Basically, I’ve been brute forcing (if I can even figure out a way) my way through every Leetcode or Hackerrank problem. However, with more and more practice, I’ve been able to recognize patterns. Problems are still difficult, but with a couple of frameworks in mind, I’ve learned not to panic when faced with a completely impossible sounding problem and systematically work through it.
If you want further encouragement, I highly recommend you check out this Reddit post that has been really helpful in continuing to motivate me as I prep to apply to jobs in a couple months.
TLDR of Reddit Post: He realizes that the people who are best at solving these technical interview questions are those who have competitive mathematics backgrounds and therefore have had years of problem solving practice. It is all about practice and pattern matching to figure out what solution route to take!
Fortunately, there are also tons of great resources about algorithmic type problem solving. The holy grail of coding interviews, Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle McDowell offers a fantastic 7 step process to walking through a technical problem. Check out the resource below and happy job hunting / interview prepping!
Here is a copy of the handout, which she makes available on her site at CareerCup:
