Giving back - how I cleared L6 coding - Part 1 - Google

Edit 2: Part 1 of long term preparation strategy is out: https://www.teamblind.com/post/YA2RKEqY Edit 1: Part 2 is out: https://www.teamblind.com/post/zfa20cCc So I'm back. I have a different username but it's me (you can confirm by looking at the SD part 1 post). I decided to give in to the multitude of people asking for coding help and I will pause part 4 of system design. I promise I'll eventually do it. Enough of this. I won't repeat my intro, see my SD part 1 for that (https://www.teamblind.com/post/4yufM3RY). Long story short is I cleared pretty much all the bigs at L6 level and now I'm giving back to Blind, which helped me while I was preparing. For coding I used different strategies for Facebook and a different one for others. This part will be about the 'others' and that's represented by Google. My target was L6 and I have no idea how this compares to lower levels. I have heard though that as you go up the levels coding starts to become less important than System Design. However I didn't really consider that and I prepared for a hardcore coding interview anyway. Before going into depths I want to flag something which is valid for pretty much all technical interview preparations. I believe preparing for an interview (for anything really) is ultimately a fight with yourself. Your lazy self tells you that you understand a solution while in truth you really don't. Your lazy self tells you you can easily solve it and don't have to actually write the solution, while you really don't. Learning to keep a good leash on this 'lazy' self is the key to making this work. Being honest with yourself about what you really know and you really don't know is half the job. Now let's press zero on the elevator and go to ground level stuff. You'll need leetcode. I only used that one. You'll need premium. You can't afford it? Take a mortgage. For Google don't expect to get an I've-seen-this-before problem. You'll have to improvise. Go to LC, go to Problems section, scroll down and on the right pane there will be Topics. Pick one, say Arrays. I used acceptance rate as a better indicator of Difficulty than the actual difficulty rating. Start picking an easy one with non-blue Frequency rating. Once you solve that one, if there is a 'Related question' go and do those too in increasing order of Difficulty tag. Which Topics do you do? Pretty much all with a number bigger than 20 on them, except Math. I didn't do Math. I think it's a waste of time. Did your heart sink at the thought of doing them all? I mean 'visit' all topics until you're confident, not do all problems there. If you're really pressed for time I recommend Arrays, DP, Backtracking, Two Pointers and Sliding Window. If you're further pressed for time then just do Arrays, DP, Two pointers. If you're further pressed for time then stop reading this post and get back to LC. Now I mentioned 'solve' in the above paragraph. Agile fanboys like to talk about the 'definition of done'. In the same vein, let's talk about the definition of solved. This is really key. If you don't get this part right you're wasting your time. There are various ways you can consider a question 'solved'. Number one is you see the problem first time, you sit down, spend 10 minutes or 2 hours whatever, write the code and you get it accepted . Hands down solved. Great job. Second best is this: you sit down, you try you can't solve it. If you jump to 'Solution' tab I'll drag you by the hair back to the 'Description' tab. Was that too violent and graphical? Good, that way it sticks and you remember it more easily. More seriously, I suggest you to go through the hints. Almost all problems have hints which you find if you scroll down right after the problem definition ends. Show hints one by one and try to solve it with the hints. Show hint 1, try to solve; Show hint 2 try to solve etc. Third best: even after hints you're still lost. Now you can go to Solution tab. Read approach 1. *Understand it*. Go back to Description tab. Now code Approach 1. Same with approach 2 and 3 etc. It is important to not code while reading the solution. It will feed your lazy self. Listen, reading the solution and shaking your head pretending you 'knew it but yeah writing the code is beneath you' is Strong No Hire Burn with Fire material. Not only you will fail but you'll make a fool of yourself. Either do it properly or go away. Hoping you got my point here, I'll move on. Once you feel ready, you'll need another couple of weeks. I'm serious. Go to Interview tab in LC, and choose Assessment. You'll have to do 10-15 assessments. You can choose between Phone Interview and Onsite Interview on the Google section. Do those properly. Set aside the uninterrupted time. This is *extremely* helpful. The reason is that it gets you used to the time pressure. Time management is a key thing in these things. So you'll need to practice working under time pressure so you don't pee your pants during the real interview. It's better to go through those phases in mock assessments than in real interviews. Do at least two per day. If possible time at least one of them at the exact time of your interview. I'll finish this part with a discussion on morale. At times you will feel dumb, you will feel hopeless, you will feel not worthy, you'll feel not genius enough, you'll feel "I can't even do this easy one", you'll feel you'll never make it and you're wasting your time. Let me tell you that the ones that cleared these interviews are the ones that didn't let themselves get demotivated by these thoughts, not the born geniuses who can solve LC Hards with their toes. It is what you do when the morale is down that determines whether you make it or not. The rest are Hollywood fantasies. So pull yourself together, focus and keep going. Exactly here, where everyone else gave up, you push through - that's how you win. Stop crying to mommy, sit up straight and get the job done. This is it for Part 1. For Part 2 I will talk about the interview day, how to manage the time, logistics and more. Good luck.