Can A Behavioral Interview Course Really Help
Absolutely. Affirmative. Yes!
Preparing for the behavioral interview is just like prepping for any other type of interview.
You wouldnt go to a coding interview without hashing out a few problems beforehand.
And you probably wouldnt go to a system design interview without doing a bit of research.
Data structures and algorithms? Not a chance youd go to that interview blindly.
And you shouldnt go to a behavioral interview without brushing up on your behavioral skills.
Want to know more about the Grokking series on Educative?
Interview Etiquette
Quizzes
Included are tons of questions you can expect to be asked by interviewers. Plus, youre provided with a number of questions you can ask employers.
How Grokking Dynamic Programming Patterns For Coding Interviews Helps
DP problems may seem hard at first and strike fear in ones heart, except one is trained to recognize the patterns in these problems and equipped with the right techniques to solve them.
This is where the course Grokking Dynamic Programming Patterns for Coding Interviews proves a valuable resource.
For example, heres the solution to the Fibonacci problem, a common dynamic programming problem explained in detail as outlined in the course:
Lets take the example of the Fibonacci numbers. As we all know, Fibonacci numbers are a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. The first few Fibonacci numbers are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8, and they continue on from there.If we are asked to calculate the nth Fibonacci number, we can do that with the following equation.
Fib = Fib + Fib, for n > 1
As we can clearly see here, to solve the overall problem ), we broke it down into two smaller sub-problems, and Fib). This shows that we can use DP to solve this problem.Below is the solution written in JavaScript:
const calculateFibonacci = function return fib } console.log //result is 5console.log //result is 8console.log //result is 13
Design Tinyurl Or Bitly
Given a long URL, how would how would you design service that would generate a shorter and unique alias for it.
Discuss things like:
- How to generate a unique ID for each URL?
- How would you generate unique IDs at scale ?
- How would your service handle redirects?
- How would you support custom short URLs?
- How to delete expired URLs etc?
- How to track click stats?
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Grokking Coding Patterns On Educativeio
Hi, did anybody here used “Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions”?
I want to know how the course is? and if it’s worth taking and anybody willing to sell it on a discount I am ready to buy.
eh, I did it. tbh it wasn’t worth it in my opinion. Its just the same interview questions that you find on leetcode, separated by techniques. Some of them that say medium or hard are now leetcode easy’s and mediums respectively when you search them up. You’re better off using leetcode and the discussions page imo than pay 80 bucks for it.
Also here is an article of all the techniques/patterns they go over and by go over I mean a short paragraph on what the technique is then just questions and solutions using said technique.
Im actually going to disagree with this opinion. I found myself lacking some unknown basics when doing leetcode and having a hard time picking up the patterns. I’m just a bit too old / ADHD to be able to learn efficiently through videos . I really appreciate the text format of this course and have found it to be exactly what I needed so far.
How To Start Your Interview Prep
I think that for most people starting out in this interview prep process, LeetCode is pretty hard. Here are two possible starting problems, though the best point of entry is admittedly Cracking the Coding Interview.
- FizzBuzz on LeetCode. I recommend it because it should not require any additional interview preparation, and will help you familiarize yourself with the LeetCode platform.
- Here’s an article about FizzBuzz on InterviewNoodle so you can learn more what that’s about.
- Jewels and Stones on LeetCode. If you are not able to solve this on your first try, then you will have to learn a technique that is useful in many coding interview problems.
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Is Grokking The System Design Interview Worth It
This course is developed by hiring managers working at top tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. They have a list of various design problem standards for a different interview with detailed expatiation on all tech and terminologies used in System design interviews.
These questions are repeatedly asked in many interviews, instructor has designed and explained the problem at a basic level till all tech and options are available to design a scalable system and tackle questions that are asked during the flow.
Every example is structured perfectly to cover all requirements and the design of a complete system. Fair assumptions, calculations, and technology have been used to make system more optimal and scalable that is crucial for any SDI interview.
Pattern: Fast & Slow Pointers
Another name for this topic is the tortoise and hare method.
It talks about the use of two pointers to determine the traits of a directional data structure.
In many cases, the technique is used to find out if there is a cyclic list in a set of data.
It becomes clear that there is a cycle in the given set of data when the two pointers used meet at a point.
This is part of what coding students will learn on the Grokking platform because knowledge of fast and slow pointers is important for organising data.
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Iii Patterns For Behavioral Questions
Heres where youll learn how to spot behavioral interview questions. And use small talk to your advantage.
Then, this Grokking the Behavioral Interview module goes over:
prior experience questions parsing questions, sample questions, and exercises
hypotheticals parsing and answering hypothetical questions, why interviewers ask them
values-based questions examining if your values are a good fit for the company
asking questions good questions to ask, rules to remember, addressing a panel
And much more.
Then youll take a quiz to test your knowledge.
Breadth Of System Design Interview Questions
With 15 system design interview questions, this course did a great job. All the famous design questions have been covered, e.g., Designing Dropbox, Uber, , URL Shortener, , WebCrawler, Messenger, or Typeahead Suggestion. Anyone preparing for SDIs will feel confident after going through these problems.
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Requirements And Goals Of The System
When designing a TinyURL-like application, there are some functional and non-functional requirements to consider.
Non-functional requirements:
-
The system must be highly available. If the service fails, all the short links will not be functional.
-
URL redirection should happen in real-time with minimal latency.
-
Shortened links should not be predictable in any manner.
Functional requirements:
-
When given a URL, our service will generate a shorter alias of the original URL. This new link will be extensively shortened so that it can be easily copied and pasted.
-
The short link should redirect users to the original link.
-
Users should have the option to pick a custom short link for their URL.
-
Short links will expire after a default timespan, but users are able to specify the expiration time.
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Who The Course Is For
Grokking Dynamic Programming Patterns for Coding interviews is designed for :
- Developers who want to pass their coding interviews with ease,
- Teachers who are seeking excellent material to teach dynamic programming to students, and
- Tech companies who are looking for an excellent resource to set up test questions for dynamic programming interviews.
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My Favorite Educative Courses For Coding Interviews And Software Development In 2022
Without wasting any more of your time, here is a list of the best interactive, text-based courses from Educative for programmers and software engineers.
These interactive text-based courses have been created by experts and Educatives state-of-the-art platform that makes learning easy with interactive quizzes, and the ability to run the program right from your browser.
Take Ownership Of Your Education
Big Tech interviews are both fairly standard and widely documented. There is a wealth of resources to prepare for the coding interview and a growing pile of systems design resources.
Itâs easy to get lost in so much information: which is why you should make a plan on how you will get âinterview-readyâ.
Create a study plan with topics you want to cover for the interview types youâre expecting to have. Learn the theory, then practice this with practice and exercises where you create something from scratch: implementing a data structure, drawing up a diagram.
There is no shortage of people complaining about the difficult interview process Big Tech has. However, I know of no other industry where you can get a high-paying job with no college degree, no connections: purely through interviews that are fairly standard among the highest paying employers like Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, Pinterest, and others.
Tech interviews being âstandardâ across the Big Tech makes preparing for these a high-leverage activity: study once, interview many times. Once you prepare, just make sure your software engineering resume grabs the attention of the recruiters.
Good luck â and if you are looking for more advice for senior and above interviews, I have some.
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Capacity Estimation And Constraints
Our system will be read-heavy. There will be a large number of redirection requests compared to new URL shortenings. Letâs assume a 100:1 ratio between read and write.
Traffic estimates: Assuming, we will have 500M new URL shortenings per month, with 100:1 read/write ratio, we can expect 50B redirections during the same period:
One thing to note here is that since there will be a lot of duplicate requests , our actual memory usage will be less than 170GB.
Grokking The System Design Interview
System Design interviews are arguably some of the most difficult for software engineers.
Making it even more challenging, many college computer science courses and coding bootcamps dont include system design in the curriculum.
But Grokking the System Design Interview bridges that gap.
Its designed to expose you to the most important elements of system design asked in FAANG-level interviews.
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Engineers Love Learning With Educative
Onboarding plans in Educative has significantly streamlined our onboarding process. Giving new hires a checklist of classes and tasks makes it very convenient.â
âEngineering Manager at Bread
âA rich yet very easy-to-use platform. A wonderful team and a true opportunity to make a difference by sharing my skills â couldnât have asked for better!â
âSamia Khalid, Senior AI Engineer at Microsoft
âAn interactive and in-browser embedded coding environment, thatâs just perfect. I believe this to be a very effective medium for learning a skill such as coding.â
âOhan Emannuel, UI designer & Lead Front End Dev at Kudi.ai
âI spend my days and nights on Educative. It is indispensable. It is such a unique and reader-friendly site, resources available for learners on Educative is well organized and deep. It helps break down tricky programming concepts into simple chunks and exercises for practice to solidify the learning experience.â
âSouvik Kundu, Front End Dev
Join the 1M+ developers and engineering teams already growing with Educative.
I Personally Think The Yearly Educativeio Subscription Is The Way To Go
That way, you can feast on this course and hundreds of others. Its also part of a learning path called Ace the Java Coding Interview, which consists of 8 other courses in addition to this one.
In my opinion, you cant go wrong with the subscription even if you just need to prepare for a technical interview.
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Container Terminal Jobs In Saudi Arabia
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Cracking The Coding Interview
Cracking the Coding Interview is still one of the best resources out there for interview prep, even in 2021. I have heard some people say that it is no longer sufficient, but I have had two coding interviews that were taken out of the book almost verbatim.
Unfortunately, this is not a free resource…but here is a LeetCode forum that maps every CTCI question to a LeetCode one.
The reason this is acceptable is that they are not perfect mappings. For example, the LeetCode String Compression problem is not exactly the same as its CTCI equivalent because it has an added constraint. It is actually harder than the CTCI version
If you do choose to purchase Cracking the Coding Interview, the solutions are all freely available on GitHub. They are in multiple programming languages, in case you are not a Java developer.
McDowell herself built the repository and committed the Java portion to it, so it is very unlikely the repository will removed due to copyright infringement.
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But I Already Know Those Answers Why Practice
Because interviews can be stressful.
This can lead to rambling, fumbling, spacing out, and an endless list of other unflattering side effects.
And its that nervous response that may lead to you not getting the jobEven if you do great with the technical stuff.
This post contains affiliate links. I may receive compensation if you buy something. Read my disclosure for more details.
What Is Grokking Dynamic Programming Patterns For Coding Interviews
The word Grokking is an English word that means to understand intuitively or by empathy.
Therefore, Grokking Dynamic Programming Patterns for Coding Interviews is an online course designed to mirror the standing of developers as novices and equip them with the different techniques necessary for recognizing and solving dynamic programming problems often asked in dynamic programming interviews, such as the Fibonacci Sequence mentioned above.
But what exactly is dynamic programming all about?
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Grokking The System Design Interview: Who Is This Course Really For
All in all, I really think Grokking the System Design Interview is a high-quality course.
However, its geared towards a specific subgroup of engineers with their sights set on top tech companies like Google and Amazon.
While this is a great course, I wouldnt recommend it to code newbies or new engineers as there is a high opportunity cost.
If youre wondering what I mean by that, check out this review of Cracking the Coding Interview.
If you want to stand out in front of the pack of hungry FAANG applicants, study the system design tools and problem-solving techniques featured in this course.
They just might do wonders for making you stand out when the big day comes to land that FAANG software engineering role.
And if you really want to grok til you drop, read my review on Grokking the Coding Interview.
Grokking the System Design Interview enthusiasts are also reading:
Coding Interview Prep Free Resources To Help You Ace Your Interviews
In the words of RealToughCandy, everyone wants a “one-stop shop” when it comes to learning.
She uses this term to describe Educative.io, but Educative.io costs $60 a month unless you choose to commit to its annual plan. So it’s not a free resource, which means it’s not available to everyone.
If money were not a factor, you might buy a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview, get a LeetCode Premium subscription, and sign up for access to Grokking the Coding Interview before scheduling some mock interviews.
Now, websites like LeetCode are interesting because they provide an excellent resource for free.A large percentage of LeetCode questions are free, the discussions section provides free solutions where the best code/explanations are voted to the top, and the platform itself can run hundreds of test cases in seconds.
Many people argue that LeetCode premium is not worth it, though writers like Yangshun Tay beg to differ. What interests me about LeetCode is not their premium option, but that they make so much of their service available without it.
All that being said, there are a number of quality free resources you can use to prepare for your coding interviews. Let’s go through my favorites now.
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How Much Does It Cost
Educative.io offers a few different pricing options for Grokking the Coding Interview.
The first main option is a subscription.
You can choose a monthly, yearly, or two-year service. These subscriptions give you access to all of Educative.ios hundreds of courses.
Subscription prices range from about $15 a month up to $60 per month.
Keep in mind, the annual plans are billed yearly.
Alternatively, Educative.io also sells their courses individually.
If you choose that option, this course costs around $80 for yearly access.
Grokking The Coding Interview By Educativeio Is Arguably One Of The Best Overall Coding Interview Prep Resources
Thats because the creators of this course had one goal in mind for programmers: the ability to map a new problem to an already known problem.
So instead of 25, 50 or even 100 coding problems, youll find 16 patterns for solving coding questions.
The idea is that once youre familiar with a pattern, youll be able to solve multiple problems with it.
This course is arguably Educative.ios best release. Find out more in our comprehensive Grokking the Coding Interview review.
Course Layout
Educative.io has an interactive layout. So instead of setting up your own environment, youll do all work inside the same browser using over 1000 coding playgrounds.
In this courses interactive coding playground, you can solve problems in Java, Python 3, JavaScript or C++.
Educative.io
Each of the 16 patterns in Grokking the Coding Interview is given its own module. Some of the patterns include:
Price: $39 per month / $279 per year for full platform access Duration: 19.5 hours Format: Video Certificate: Yes
Zero to Mastery
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