leetcode-patterns VS coding-interview-university

Today, after updating my personal website, I shifted focus to a crucial aspect of tech interviews: data structures and algorithms. Starting with arrays, I've committed to tackling one topic per day, solving 3ish related LeetCode problems to reinforce my understanding. 📚 (This website is super useful - sorting leetcodes by patterns)

He says things that are pro-labor. Then he does things like oppose minimum wage increases, support anti-union actions, appoint judges who will oppose unions or labor, appoint two very anti-labor assholes to the NLRB, and outright just not pay for labor. Trump is not "pro labor", he's just a liar.

Quality over quantity! I solved hundreds of them while preparing for big tech interviews and I can say with confidence after certain number of questions we have diminishing returns. A good base of questions with patterns clearly explained is all you really need. As of now there are many lists online Blind 75 (https://www.teamblind.com/post/New-Year-Gift---Curated-List-of-Top-75-LeetCode-Questions-to-Save-Your-Time-OaM1orEU), Prashad's leetcode patterns (https://seanprashad.com/leetcode-patterns/), curated list of problems from Elements of Programming.

Grinding leetcode is inefficient. What you should be doing is familiarizing yourself with the common patterns you might expect to see in an interview. Look at the blind 75 and https://seanprashad.com/leetcode-patterns/.

Initially, you don’t need to solve any of the problems from scratch. Look up the problem on YouTube and someone will walk you through it. This will build your intuition of when to reach for a heap or for a DP array or when to do BFS, etc. If you don’t know these, then watch another video explaining the concepts. These videos are often 10-15 minutes a day so with a 30 minute time commitment you potentially can get through 3 a day, getting you through the complete blind 75 (more than enough) in less than a month or 1 of each of SP’s 22 patterns in a couple of weeks.

The great thing is you don’t need dedicated time for this approach, you can often start a video while tackling laundry or doing some dishes.

Then, start putting these into practice but spend no more than 10-15 minutes on the problem. If you can’t solve it, go watch the video again. There are so many times where you can have the right approach but make a stupid mistake that will cause you to flounder and you can pick up a better way of doing it. Eventually you will be solving these in 10-15 minutes and the time commitment will have remained at a minimum.

After this, find a new job that is only 40 hours a week and voila you’ve just opened up 10-20 hours for personal projects.

I used this list of patterns for my preparation, but you can use another; it's just an example of what it usually looks like. 😊

Sean Prashad has a good list that maps the type of problem to a particular pattern.

Sean Prashad: 212+54 problems

When I started grinding I had already taken a DS course so I was at least aware of hashmaps, arrays, trees, etc. but even leetcode easies we’re still a struggle and the ones I could do I wasn’t solving them optimally. Having that basic knowledge though allowed me to start struggling through the book I mentioned. EPI is harder than CTCI but it’s language specific and I already knew I was going to use python. I completely skipped bit manipulation and tries but I ended up getting a trie question in one of my interviews and that was by far the hardest question I’ve ever gotten, probably because i skipped tries altogether lol. I haven’t tried grokking. I started doing EPI by hand so that I was forced to think through solutions before writing them but if you feel like that’s unnecessary for you just type it but it def helped me since in interviews you have to discuss before coding. The DP section of epi was really hard so I didn’t complete it. From there I just started struggling through LC. After epi I started with easies but i didn’t stay there for long since epi is mostly mediums and some hards anyways. The biggest thing is to learn from every problem, even the ones you don’t finish. Truly take the time to understand a solution even if that means 45+ minutes of digging into it. The same patterns come up again and again so you’ll have to dig into them eventually. Identifying the patterns from the way questions are phrased come from quantity I feel like so doing a lot of LC problems is the way to go. My pattern recognition was on point after about 100 problems in total maybe. For LC i did 95% of all easies and mediums in [this]. Earlier I said I skipped DP in epi but def do dp leetcode problems. You don’t have to master it but def become familiar. If by the end of everything you’re able to knock out 70+ medium level questions then you should probably be good for internship interviews. Hope this helps and also if you take the blind 75 route NeetCode on YouTube has done all of them I think and he’s really good with explaining the problems. Take the time to understand each data structure individually before even attempting problems. I think EPI does a good job of that or you can just hop on YouTube. Good luck Glum Choice, I have faith that you will prevail 🏅

LC refers to Leetcode problems (LC = LeetCode). While the Leetcode website itself is not the only place to practice, "Leetcode problems" refers to the general concept of programming interview problems involving data structures and algorithms.

I am also new at leetcode. But from the advices I gathered and from my own experience, I will suggest to first learn all data structures. Once you understand, then start with the easy ones and gradually learn the patterns. Sean Prashad as a good list of the pattern you can find via this link: https://seanprashad.com/leetcode-patterns/

✅ jwasham/coding-interview-university : https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university

4) Coding Interview University: Conquer the dreaded coding interview with this battle-tested arsenal of algorithms, data structures, and interview prep strategies. Sharpen your problem-solving skills, optimize your coding efficiency, and ace those technical assessments with this invaluable resource. (https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university)

View on GitHub

I stumbled upon a github post called coding interview university and with the shiny object syndrome I have, I kinda want to ditch the roadmaps and start something new like this one in github, or the random dude I found in YouTube, telling his audience that he passed the FAANG interviews. The annoying part of me is that whenever I hear stuff like “I passed the FAANG”, I will immediately try to follow their path because their method works for them or to some other people