How to prepare for coding interview in 2 days?

Preparing for a coding interview in just two days is challenging, but with focused and strategic effort, you can maximize your preparation time. Here’s a plan to help you make the most of these two days:

Day 1: Review and Practice Fundamentals

Morning: Review Key Concepts (3-4 hours)

1. Data Structures:

   • Arrays: Understand operations like insertion, deletion, and traversal.
   • Linked Lists: Practice basic operations and understand different types (singly, doubly, circular).
   • Stacks and Queues: Know how to implement and use them.
   • Hash Tables: Understand how hashing works and practice collision resolution techniques.
   • Trees: Review binary trees, binary search trees, and tree traversals (in-order, pre-order, post-order).
   • Graphs: Understand basic concepts and traversal methods (DFS, BFS).

2. Algorithms:

   • Sorting: Quick sort, merge sort, and bubble sort.
   • Searching: Binary search and linear search.
   • Dynamic Programming: Understand the concept and solve basic problems like Fibonacci sequence and knapsack problem.
   • Recursion: Review base cases and recursive cases with examples.

Afternoon: Practice Easy and Medium Problems (4-5 hours)

1. Select Key Patterns:

   • Sliding Window: Practice problems involving fixed or variable window sizes.
   • Two Pointers: Problems like finding pairs in an array that sum to a target.
   • Fast and Slow Pointers: Linked list cycle detection.
   • Merge Intervals: Practice merging overlapping intervals.
   • Cyclic Sort: Problems involving sorting without extra space.

2. Use DesignGurus.io:

   • Suggested Course: Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions.
   • Focus on Problems: Solve problems that align with these patterns to understand the application.

Evening: Simulate Real Interviews (2-3 hours)

1. Mock Interviews:
   • Use Platforms: DesignGurus.io, Pramp, Interviewing.io, or a friend to conduct mock interviews.
   • Simulate Conditions: Time yourself and practice explaining your thought process out loud.

Day 2: Deep Dive and Review

Morning: Practice Medium and Hard Problems (4-5 hours)

1. Focus on Problem-Solving Techniques:

   • Dynamic Programming: Practice more complex problems like longest common subsequence, and unique paths in a grid.
   • Backtracking: Solve problems like N-Queens and subsets generation.
   • Graph Algorithms: Practice problems involving graph traversal and shortest path algorithms.

2. Review DesignGurus.io Problems:

   • Continue with Grokking the Coding Interview.
   • Focus on problems that have detailed explanations and learn different approaches.

Afternoon: Review and Optimize Solutions (4-5 hours)

1. Review Solutions:

   • Analyze Your Code: Check for efficiency and correctness. Optimize for time and space complexity.
   • Understand Mistakes: Learn from any mistakes you made and how to correct them.

2. Focus on Edge Cases:

   • Ensure you consider and handle edge cases in your solutions.
   • Practice writing test cases to validate your solutions.

Evening: Final Review and Relaxation (2-3 hours)

1. Quick Review of Key Concepts:

   • Go over your notes on data structures and algorithms.
   • Review common coding patterns and problem-solving strategies.

2. Prepare for the Interview:

   • Ensure your setup is ready for the interview (e.g., a quiet place, good internet connection).
   • Relax and get a good night’s sleep to ensure you are well-rested for the interview.

Conclusion

Preparing for a coding interview in just two days is intense, but with a focused and strategic approach, you can cover a lot of ground. Use resources like Grokking the Coding Interview from DesignGurus.io to efficiently learn and practice key patterns. Review and practice fundamental data structures and algorithms, simulate real interview conditions, and ensure you understand and can apply common coding patterns.

Good luck with your interview!