How I Prepare for Algorithm Interviews for FAANG
Previously, I’ve written an article about how to prepare for algorithm interviews. As I experienced more FAANG interviews during the past years, I noticed the effort involved in preparing for these interviews is far more than non-FAANG companies. Thus I think it’s worth writing another article dedicated to FAANG interviews.
Timeline
The preparation should start way earlier than the actual interview. It doesn’t start when you apply for a position or when you are contacted by the recruiters. Rather it starts when you make the resolution to start the preparation, which might be years before the actual interview. Ideally, you want to divide the timeline into multiple stages, and in each stage, you break the preparation workload into small bite-size chunks, which you can complete piece by piece.
Practice
practice makes perfect and perfect (or near perfect) is what you should aim for in FAANG interviews. Applying the correct method when practicing is of the utmost importance. You need to get familiar with every single question tagged with that company for the last six months. No one single question should be left out. Previously, I really despised this way of practicing because it's relentless and against my philosophy of preparing for interviews. My previous philosophy is you should practice enough to get a good grasp of all the categories and the patterns and tactics for each category so that you can apply these patterns and tactics when you see similar questions. But based on my FAANG interview experience, you will always encounter a question that you won’t be able to solve on the spot. So you really need to practice every single tagged question. For each question, you need to practice enough times to the point that once you see it you get the solution right in your mind.
Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency!
You only have a limited amount of time. You got a full-time job, or you might get a family to take care of. How you are going to allocate your time is another important factor. Taking a look at the Meta’s tagged questions for example, there are 268 questions for the last six months. How are you going to practice all of them (and ideally multiple times)? This presents a tremendous challenge. This is in part alleviated by extending the timeline as I mentioned above. More importantly, you need to make very detailed study plans, which you need to follow strictly. An algorithm interview essentially consists of two parts, the communication part and the coding part. Each time you practice a question, what constitutes an effective practice in an efficient way? Do you need to practice both the communication and the coding parts? Probably not, because coding is gonna take up the majority of the time. So how do you decide when you should practice a question entirely, and when to practice partially? Answers to these questions should be laid out in your study plan.
Communication, communication, communication!
Knowing how to solve a question doesn’t mean you can explain the idea clearly to someone else. I’m sure if you get right into the coding and solve the question with perfect code with no communication, you will fail the interview undoubtedly. You should always explain your idea and solution before getting into the coding part. Communication gets better if you practice more. Every time you practice a question, you can skip the coding part to save time, but you should always practice talking through the solutions in detail, combined with illustrations.
In conclusion, preparing for FAANG interviews is a mammoth undertaking, which requires a huge amount of commitment in time and energy. The moment you decide to start this undertaking, you start a new lifestyle. Happy practicing!
