Do Coding Interview Questions While You’re Learning
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.
Start doing coding interview questions while you’re learning data structures and algorithms.
You need to apply what you’re learning to solving problems, or you’ll forget. I made this mistake.
Once you’ve learned a topic, and feel somewhat comfortable with it, for example, linked lists:
Keep doing problems while you’re learning all this stuff, not after.
You’re not being hired for knowledge, but how you apply the knowledge.
There are many resources for this, listed below. Keep going.
What Else Should I Know Before I Take The Hackerrank Assessment
A HackerRank assessment can take up to 60-90 minutes so make sure youre in a quiet environment where you have enough time to practice and take the assessment. It is also recommended to use the latest versions of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox when taking an assessment. Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are currently supported by HackerRank.
Generate An Api Key In Hackerrank
- Log into HackerRank for Work as a Company Admin user.
- On the home page, click the arrow next to the user icon in the top-right corner and select Settings.
- Navigate to the ATS Integration section and click Configure on the Lever tile.
- Click the Generate API Token button and copy the key that is generated. Note that this key is unique and you will not be able to retrieve it again after this stage of the process.
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Project Questions In Interviews
You can import Project questions inside HackerRank interview during a live interview. With this feature, interviewers will be able to assess candidates on skills like React, Angular, Nodes, etc., during live interviews and view their code inside the Interview report and rerun the same inside the IDE.
To know more on importing Project question interviews, refer to the Importing Projects in HackerRank Interview article.
Projects questions in the interview
What Does Leetcode Do
LeetCodes mission is to assist software engineers in strengthening their skills, learning how to use them, prepare for technical interviews, and expand their knowledge. They offer more than 1,800 questions which are divided into three skill levels:
- Easy
- Hard
Premium members also have access to problem sets that are based on company questions.
Today, LeetCode remains one of the largest communities for developers. They continue to have thousands of active users and a robust discussion board.
To challenge themselves and earn rewards, users can participate in contests. Some contests are sponsored by big companies searching for potential hiring candidates.
LeetCode includes 14 coding languages mentioned above, and users can write, debug, and test their projects online through their playground.
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What Does Hackerrank Do
HackerRank was the first programming platform from India to receive sponsorship from the American seed money startup accelerator, Y Combinator.
The company has now grown to become the leading technical skill assessment program for developers.
Most of the high-ranking tech companies use HackerRank to provide coding tests and technical interviews to their candidates.
HackerRank also offers practice questions for software engineers who want to train for technical interviews in similar environments theyll be tested in.
The program can also assist people looking to learn new skills and languages.
Each question is classified by skill level in algorithms, data structures, various languages, and general math.
HackerRank also features contests users can participate in, and a job board aspiring software engineers can use.
Their programming challenges have solutions in multiple programming languages and go through various computer science domains.
Regarding the consumer side, when a programmer presents a solution to a challenge, their submission is scored by the precision and exactness of their resulting product.
Programmers from all over the world are then scored and ranked on the HackerRank leaderboard. From there, they can earn badges based on their achievements to push more competition among the programmers.
Picking A Programming Language
Before anything else, you need to pick a programming language for your algorithmic coding interview. Most companies will allow you to code in the language of your choice. The only exception I know is Google. They allow their candidates to pick from only Java, C++, Python, Go or JavaScript. For the most part, I recommend using a language that you are extremely familiar with, rather than one that is new to you but that the company uses widely.
There are some languages that are more suitable than others for coding interviews. Then there are some that you absolutely want to avoid. From my experience as an interviewer, most candidates pick Python or Java. Other languages commonly selected include JavaScript, Ruby, and C++. I would absolutely avoid lower-level languages like C or Go, simply because they lack standard library functions and data structures.
Personally, Python is my de facto choice for coding algorithms during interviews. It is succinct and has a huge library of functions and data structures. One of the top reasons I recommend Python is that it uses consistent APIs that operate on different data structures, such as len, for … in … and slicing notation on sequences . Getting the last element in a sequence is arr , and reversing it is simply arr. You can achieve a lot with minimal syntax in Python.
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Leetcode Premium Vs Algoexpert Vs Interview Cake Vs Hackerrank
Which coding interview prep product should you use?At Moonchaser we have helped 100s of software engineers negotiate their compensation at leading tech companies from FAANG to startups like Brex, Databricks and Roblox. The engineers we work with provide feedback on which tools were effective for their interview prep.
Cost For Hackerrank Vs Leetcode
Certain questions and solutions are free on LeetCode, but most of them require a subscription to make full use of the service.
Users can subscribe to a monthly package for $35 each month.
On the other hand, they can select the annual package for $159 per year, which saves you over $200 paying month-to-month.
Premium users have access to more accurate company problem sets, question sorting by prevalence, and more solutions and questions.
HackerRank for users is free.
The program makes money from the companies that use their platform to find and evaluate candidates.
To access the questions, users need to sign up for a profile.
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Input Output And Console
There are Input, Output, and Console sections at the bottom of the page. You can click the upward arrow and the respective tabs to expand this section.
Input, Output, and Console Tabs
Input section: The Standard Input is used to test the code by providing input to the code in this section. After providing the input, click the Run Code button. However, if you want to use the pre-configured test cases for the question, select the Run all test cases checkbox instead.
Output Section: The Output section displays the output of the code when Run. If there is an error in the code compilation, it is displayed here.
Console: This interactive console executes the code of REPL enabled languages Python, JavaScript, and Ruby by taking real-time input. You can learn more about REPL support in HackerRank Interview here.
Have Questions For The Interviewer
Some of mine :
- How large is your team?
- What does your dev cycle look like? Do you do waterfall/sprints/agile?
- Are rushes to deadlines common? Or is there flexibility?
- How are decisions made in your team?
- How many meetings do you have per week?
- Do you feel your work environment helps you concentrate?
- What are you working on?
- What do you like about it?
- What is the work life like?
- How is the work/life balance?
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Which Programming Languages Are Supported By Hackerrank
HackerRank currently supports 35 programming languages. If you are a LinkedIn candidate you have the flexibility to choose the languages that are allowed for answering a particular question or test, however, only those languages will be available to you. You can refer this page to view the supported languages with their versions. This page will be also available to you while attempting the test.
Once You’ve Got The Job
Congratulations!
Keep learning.
You’re never really done.
**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************Everything below this point is optional. It is NOT needed for an entry-level interview.However, by studying these, you'll get greater exposure to more CS concepts, and will be better prepared forany software engineering job. You'll be a much more well-rounded software engineer.**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
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How Do I Start To Prepare For A Hackerrank Assessment
Start by taking a 30-minute sample test so you can get familiar with the assessment process. There is also a HackerRank Interview Preparation Kit that is available. We carefully curated challenges to help you prepare in the most comprehensive way possible so try to solve as many challenges as possible and if you get stuck, use the discussion and editorial sections for hints and solutions. If you have any additional questions, check out the HackerRank test FAQ page.
Why Work With Algorithmic Problems
A lot of people look at a tool like HackerRank and pose the following questions: Why would I practice with these algorithmic problems when this is not what I do at work?. Fair question. Here are a few reasons to do that:
- Solving algorithmic problems teaches programming techniques that can be applied in different contexts.
- Non-trivial efficiency problems come up from time to time in most projects. When you work with algorithmic challenges, you are well equipped to handle them.
- You may be asked similar questions in an interview. Even if you are not looking for a new job, you may be required to participate in an interview. This is common for us in the consulting business, but it may also happen for start-up employees, as their company is being bought.
- It makes you a better interviewer. Expert skill in solving these kinds of problems helps you to quickly understand what others are trying to write and debug their code in your head.
- You may get to practice parts of your programming language that you are not using that often.
- It can be really fun.
I am sure there are many other benefits of doing these kinds of problems. If I missed something important, let me know in the comments.
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Owning Interview Prep: Your Guide To The Hackerrank Assessment
Whether youre a new college grad embarking on your first developer job interview, or a third-year CS major looking for your first internship, you must be prepared to show off your technical chops throughout the interview process. In order to demonstrate the best of your abilities, you should be able to feel at home during a coding interview. Thats why many companies have partnered with HackerRank to help evaluate, identify, and hire developers with the right skills. Here are some tips on taking the HackerRank challenge for technical candidates:
Add Hackerrank Stage To Job’s Interview Plan
Once the Greenhouse/HackerRank integration is enabled for your organization, you will be able to add the HackerRank assessment as an Interview stage.
To do this for an existing job, navigate to a job and click Job Setup from the Job navigation bar.
From the Job Setup page, navigate to Interview Plan on the left-hand panel. Scroll down the page and click + Add a Stage.
From the Add Stage dialog box, select the HackerRank stage. When finished, click Add to apply the stage to the job’s interview plan.
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Any Other Websites Worth Recommending
HackerRank is the website that I use the most for practising my coding skills. There are a few others worth mentioning:
for programming competitions based around game AI. Very easy to get into, very fun. They really deserve their own blog post for the amazing stuff there are doing. If you have kids- they will love the website as well.
for more serious competitive programming
similar to topcoder, good challenges, plenty of competitions
even more competitive programming. I heard good opinions about it but I did not try it yet
recently recommended to me. It gamifies the experience of practicing for your interview and includes lots of sample problems.
Is Hackerrank Good For Beginners
Imposter syndrome can be hard to shake in the tech world. Figuring out when you stop being a beginner and move to the intermediate or advanced stage can be tricky.
HackerRank is often touted for its user-friendliness and the ability to choose challenges with different difficulties.
They have easy, medium, and hard difficulty questions, and also split skills down into basic, intermediate, and advanced. It means the platform should be suitable for all levels.
However, the reality is that HackerRank isnt the right platform for absolute beginners.
You would be better off taking a programming course on Udemy or using freeCodeCamp if you are aiming to be a front-end developer.
You need to have a basic grasp of how functions are put together and an understanding of basic programming principles. Without any prior knowledge, even the easiest challenges will seem alien.
It is important to walk before you can run when learning JavaScript or any other language. If you take on too much too soon, it can make the entire process frustrating and demotivating.
They have tried to broaden their appeal with challenges like 30 Days of Code. But it isnt comprehensive enough for absolute beginners. You also can only answer one question a day which is a bit of a buzzkill.
But if you are still struggling to build basic apps or understand the fundamentals of the language you have chosen, then steer clear of HackerRank. It may end up demotivating you because the questions can be tough.
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Is Hackerrank Good For Learning
Search around and youll hear a few different arguments about the effectiveness of HackerRank as a learning tool. Some developers swear by it and have gotten job offers based on their competition scores. Others revile it and think it should be avoided for anyone looking to do serious development work. Like all good things, the answer is usually in the middle somewhere.
HackeRank isnt great for learning the basics of a programming language. Their resources just arent in-depth enough for those starting right at the beginning. The 10 days of JavaScript challenge has less than 25 exercises. In comparison, The freeCodeCamp JavaScript certificate has around 300 challenges with over 100 of those encompassing basic JavaScript skills.
If you are trying to learn front-end development, check out one of the boot camps on Udemy or a Nanodegree from Udacity. Both offer a far more immersive and in-depth experience than learning on HackerRank.
However, HackerRank is a good resource for learning algorithms and data structures. A lot of the questions on HackerRank are the same trivia-style algorithm questions from coding interviews. It is a fantastic place to learn the basics of these skills and challenge your understanding of these concepts.
HackerRank also has a slight lean towards back-end development with Ruby, C++, Python, databases, and SQL comprising a large number of their skills. It is still good for front-end developers but other learning resources may be more useful.
Live Text Audio And Video Chat
The participants can use text, audio, and video conference to interact with each other according to their preferences and requirements. You can click the chat window to expand it and click the required icon to make a video call or phone call.
Tip: You can move the Chat Window on the interview screen.
Chat Window
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Interview Cake Discounts & Refunds
You can get interview cake for free . To sign up for interview cake for free you just need the Github Student Developer Pack.
Interview Cake’s refund policy is the best in the industry. Parker â the Interview Cake founder â provides a “no questions asked” refund within the first 100 days of sign up. We tested the refund and Parker, indeed, honored it.
Phases Of A Coding Interview
Congratulations, you are ready to put your skills to practice! In a coding interview, you will be given a technical question by the interviewer. You will write the code in a real-time, collaborative editor or on a whiteboard , and have 30 to 45 minutes to solve the problem. This is where the real fun begins!
Your interviewer will be looking to see that you meet the requirements of the role. It is up to you to show them that you have the skills. Initially, it may feel weird to talk while you code, as most programmers do not make a habit of explaining out loud their thoughts while they are typing code.
However, it is hard for the interviewer to know what you are thinking by just looking at your code. If you communicate your approach to the interviewer even before you start to code, you can validate your approach with them. This way, the two of you can agree on an acceptable approach.
Preparing for a remote interview
For phone screens and remote interviews, have a paper and pen or pencil to jot down any notes or diagrams. If you are given a question about trees and graphs, it usually helps if you draw examples of the data structure.
Use earphones. Make sure you are in a quiet environment. You do not want to be holding a phone in one hand and typing with the other. Try to avoid using speakers. If the feedback is bad, communication is made harder. Having to repeat yourself will just result in the loss of valuable time.
What to do when you get the question
Starting to code
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