Are patterns OK for an interview?

Yes, patterns are perfectly OK for coding interviews and are highly encouraged. Recognizing and applying coding patterns in interviews demonstrates that you can solve problems efficiently and are familiar with proven approaches for tackling common challenges. Here's why using patterns is a great strategy in interviews:

1. Patterns Help Structure Problem-Solving

When faced with a coding problem, identifying the underlying pattern helps you apply a structured solution rather than starting from scratch. This shows interviewers that you:

• Understand the problem's nature.
• Have experience solving similar problems.
• Can quickly arrive at an optimized solution.

For instance, using the Sliding Window pattern for problems involving subarrays, or the Two Pointers pattern for problems with sorted arrays, can lead to more efficient solutions.

2. Patterns Are Frequently Tested

Coding problems in interviews often revolve around common algorithmic challenges, many of which can be solved using well-known patterns. Here are some examples:

• Top K Elements Pattern for finding the most frequent items.
• Depth-First Search (DFS) or Breadth-First Search (BFS) for tree and graph problems.
• Dynamic Programming for problems requiring optimization and subproblem breakdowns, like the Knapsack problem.

Interviewers appreciate when candidates apply known patterns because it shows efficiency and familiarity with solving complex problems.

3. Patterns Improve Efficiency

Patterns often provide the most efficient solution for a given problem. For example:

• A brute force approach to finding the maximum sum of a subarray could have time complexity O(n²), but using the Sliding Window pattern reduces this to O(n).

Being able to recognize the most optimal approach shows that you can write performance-efficient code, which is critical in real-world applications.

4. Patterns Show Your Problem-Solving Skills

Mastering coding patterns indicates that you can:

• Decompose problems effectively.
• Recognize relationships between different coding problems.
• Think abstractly and apply general solutions to specific cases.

Best Resources for Learning Patterns

• Grokking the Coding Interview by DesignGurus.io: This course is highly recommended for learning how to recognize and apply patterns in coding interviews.
  • Grokking the Coding Interview
• LeetCode and HackerRank: These platforms have a variety of problems that follow common coding patterns.

Conclusion

Using coding patterns in interviews is a smart and effective strategy. It helps you solve problems faster, more efficiently, and demonstrates a deep understanding of common algorithms and data structures. Interviewers appreciate candidates who can apply these patterns to solve real-world problems during technical interviews.